


By Small and Small

by luxover



Series: By Small and Small [1]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canonical Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 06:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 43,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9111259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxover/pseuds/luxover
Summary: Babe wants to keep talking with Gene, but he doesn’t really know what to say. He feels like, in the past, he never would’ve shut up, but now, since Julian, he’s just got nothing. Maybe that’s grieving; Bill says that’s grieving, anyway, but Bill uses the term like a Band-Aid to put over every aspect of Babe that has changed.Or: The one where Gene is in med school and Babe's messed up over Julian.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For and because of thelastfig. 
> 
> Eternal gratitude to derselbe for the read-through.

The mock hospital room they put Babe in is cold, and it makes him think of Julian. There’s a couple of cabinets lining the far wall, a box of gloves and an electronic thermometer, but on the whole, the room is pretty sparse, just the medical table that Babe’s sitting on. No sink, even, but there is a big jug of hand sanitizer. As if Babe wasn’t already sure he was in the right place.

Waiting for the first doctor to show, Babe reads through his prompt card. _HISTORY OF ILLNESS_ , it says at the top. Babe knows the history by heart because he’s already read it a dozen times in the waiting room, but once more doesn’t hurt.

 _You own a landscaping business and work outside,_ the card reads. _You love your job, but at this time of year, things have been really busy. You are currently enrolled full-time in coursework at the local community college, are caring for your elderly grandmother, and you run your own business. Your stress level is very high, and you don’t have time to be sick!_

Easy enough. No one ever feels like they have the time to be sick. Babe doesn’t have the time to be sick, and he’s not been doing much of anything lately. There’s even a whole bullet-pointed list underneath with random facts about the illness Babe’s pretending to have—pneumonia, how exotic—but it’s nothing too crazy, just things like a deep cough, a fever. Whatever.

Julian used to do this part-time, so it’s not like it can really be all that difficult.

The first student to come in and play doctor is someone who introduces himself as “Ralph. I mean, Doctor Spina,” and forgets to sanitize his hands. He’s nervous, Babe can tell, but Babe was given the heads up that this was their first exam, and most everyone would be pretty shit because of it.

“And, um, right,” Spina says. “So how long have you been sick for…?”

“About two days,” Babe tells him. Basic question, basic answer. Top of the prompt card kind of material. “Spent yesterday in bed, shivering like crazy.”

“Yeah, it was cold yesterday,” Spina agrees, and then tries to get himself back on track. “So! Fatigue?”

The next student doctor Babe sees, Doctor Lemaire, looks him over and tells him that they’ll get him patched up, right as rain. She’s both blonde and French, or sounds it anyway, and suddenly Babe understands why Julian had an interest in the Standardized Patient Program to begin with. Aiming high, going for a med student like that, not that Julian necessarily knew this one.

 _It pays pretty well,_ he had defended himself to Babe, and then with a laugh and an elbow digging into Babe’s side, _You even get paid extra if you let them do rectal exams_.

Babe shakes his head a little, tries to clear the memory.

“Let’s take your temperature now,” Doctor Lemaire is saying, and she turns around to grab the thermometer. It tumbles to the ground in her haste, but when she picks it up, she’s smiling at him. She might not know what she’s doing, being a student and all, but she’s not nervous. “Do you—did you take your temperature at all yesterday? You said fever?”

“Uh, yeah,” Babe says. “I did have a fever, but I don’t know what it was.”

“Right,” she says, and it’s clear from her tone that she’s thinking. “It’s not a problem. No problem.”

“I swear I was definitely feverish,” Babe tells her. It’s not really in the script, but being an SP is a lot more boring than he had expected. There’s only so much Babe can do considering he can’t exactly roleplay a guy with one lung.

“I believe you,” she reassures him, and she smiles just like Julian.

It’s all pretty much the same after that, and they more or less all figure out what’s wrong with him eventually. _Pneumonia_ , they say. _Treatable_ , they tell him. _Amoxycillin_. Babe’s a soft pitch to them, something easy just to get them in the swing of things. No one stands out as particularly notable. There’s one guy, though— 

“I’m Doc Roe,” he says with an accent, and Babe would be lying if he said Doc Roe wasn’t the best looking person he’s ever seen. “You must be Edward.”

Babe doesn’t bother correcting him on his name, too busy trying not to stare. Dark hair, dark eyes. Doc Roe looks serious, but he looks like he cares. Shit, he looks like a doctor. Babe’s interested.

Doc Roe heads right to the counter and sanitizes his hands before anything gets started, and then he leans over to shake one of Babe’s.

“So what’s brought you in today?” Doc Roe asks. He’s kind of quiet, but not the quiet where Babe is struggling to hear him. Just the kind of quiet where he’s not loud like Bill.

“I got a real bad cough, Doc,” Babe tells him. “Fever, chills, mucous. The whole nine yards.”

Doc Roe nods. “And how long has this been goin’ on for?”

“Two days?” Babe says with a shrug. “Thought I nearly died running to class on Monday, I started coughing so hard. Hurt my chest like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Do you use an inhaler?” Doc Roe asks. He’s the first one to actually ask this, which Babe thinks is a big deal based solely on the fact that his card told him he doesn’t.

“Nah,” Babe tells him. “Though I might need one, if Monday’s any indication.”

“Well,” Doc Roe says lightly. He doesn’t laugh at Babe’s joke, but his face softens. “Let’s find out what we can. Just gotta listen to your heart first.”

He grabs the stethoscope from around his neck and places the buds in his ears. The metal of the chestpiece is a cold shock on Babe’s back, but Doc Roe’s hands are warm when they brush Babe’s skin, helping Babe move his shirt out of the way. And Babe thinks—well, Babe wants Doc Roe touching him, sure, but this isn’t exactly what he had in mind. He wonders, embarrassingly, how erratic his heartbeat is.

God, Julian would have a fucking field day. 

 

Afterwards, Babe stands outside by his car and lights up a smoke. He’s far enough from the hospital—second to last spot—that he figures he can get away with it. No one’s around, anyway; it’s too cold for that. Babe’s nose already frozen, his fingers tight. With the cigarette tucked between his lips, Babe turns the collar of his coat up around his neck and then stuffs his hands in his pockets.

 _Fuck_ , he thinks. _It’s colder than hell_. But what he really means is that it’s colder than it’s been in a long time, the coldest since Julian, and it’s fucking nuts to think it’s been almost a month. Fucking nuts to think of everything that’s changed, and all the things that haven’t. Babe almost can’t stand it.

“You know, those’ll kill ya,” someone says, and when Babe looks up, there’s the attractive doctor, Doc Roe. He’s got a coat on over his scrubs, but no scarf or anything, just a bag slung over one shoulder. The shells of his ears are red. He looks young like this, and somehow less serious now that he’s out of the hospital, although not by much. Babe wonders if he ever smiles.

“No more than a car crash,” Babe greets, cigarette bobbing in his lips as he speaks, hands still tucked away in his jacket. Doc Roe just shrugs.

“I s’pose,” he says. He unlocks the car that’s next to Babe’s and tosses his backpack inside. Babe wonders if he’s off to the library to study, or if he’s done for the day. Wonders where he’s from and how he wound up in Philly. “You been here long?”

Babe blinks blankly. “What, smoking?” he asks.

“No, I meant acting,” Doc Roe says, but gently, like he’s trying not to embarrass Babe, and that’s a thought: Babe, embarrassed. Doc Roe rubs his hands together for warmth, and then tucks his fingers into the sleeves of his jacket, hunching his shoulders towards his ears. “Doing the Standardized Patient thing.”

“Oh,” Babe says. He notices again that Doc Roe doesn’t have a scarf, or a hat. It seems like something a doctor should have. “That was my first time, actually,” he admits, and knocks the ash off the end of his cigarette for something to do with his hands. “A friend of mine recommended it.”

“Yeah?” Doc Roe asks, and Babe can tell it’s not just to be polite. “Your friend still do it?”

“No,” Babe says, and he doesn’t explain because he can’t yet. He’s careful not to breathe smoke Doc Roe’s way on his next exhale, though, and wonders if Doc Roe even notices.

“Well, you’re good at it,” Doc Roe tells him, and Babe snorts and rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, real difficult,” Babe agrees sarcastically, and then wonders why he’s being such an asshole for no reason. “Dude one room over has jaundice, and all I get is pneumonia.”

“I’m serious, Edward,” Doc Roe says, and Babe has to hold back his cringe.

“It’s Babe,” he corrects, and Doc Roe looks confused.

“What?”

“My name,” Babe tells him, and when he sees Doc looking skeptical, he adds, “I’m serious, Doc. Only the nuns at my old Catholic school call me Edward.”

“Not a doctor yet,” Doc points out. “Bad luck, maybe, calling me that before I am.”

“You called yourself that first,” Babe points out.

“Yeah, I know,” Doc Roe says, his breath hanging in the air between them. “But in there, I’ve got a script.”

“Then what should I call you?” Babe asks, and it comes out sounding smooth as silk, although he doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s not like they had an actual introduction.

“Just Gene’ll do,” Gene says. Then, “Can I bum a drag?” He darts a pale hand out, takes the cigarette from between Babe’s fingers and takes a drag before Babe even realizes what’s going on. His lips curl around the filter and Babe can’t look away. On the exhale, Gene says, “ _Merde._ Makes me forget why I quit.”

“Well, you know,” Babe says carefully, “I hear smoking’ll kill you.” He takes the cigarette back when Gene offers it, and watches as Gene glances around the parking lot before looking back at Babe. 

“No more’n a car crash, I hear,” he says, and his smile is so, so small, just the slightest upturn of his lips, but fuck if Babe doesn’t want to see more of it. He wonders if Gene is flirting with him, or it’s just a joke to make the smalltalk more bearable.

“Yeah, so I hear,” Babe says, suddenly at a loss of what to say. If this were a month ago, he’d probably have asked for Gene’s number, but it’s not, and Babe’s still missing a big part of himself that he hasn’t yet learned how to live without. So instead, he just looks at Gene, and then looks away when it starts to feel selfish.

“Well,” Gene says eventually, “guess I’ll see you around, Edward.”

“It’s Babe,” Babe reminds him, and Gene just looks at him like he knows what he’s doing. 

“I’ll remember for next time,” Gene says easily, and then climbs in his car with a slight wave to Babe. Babe just stands there and watches as Gene leaves the lot, and thinks over all the things he might’ve said if everything were different. 

“Stupid,” he says to himself, dropping his cigarette butt to the concrete and climbing into his own car.

The guys’ll be waiting.

 

The apartment is busy when Babe gets home. Bill’s there, crowded around the tv with Liebgott and Toye as they play Call of Duty. Webster’s slouched on the couch reading a ratty paperback, the cover folded all the way back. 

“Hey, look who finally decided to show up,” Bill calls out when he sees Babe, and Babe rolls his eyes, drops his keys on the small table by the door.

“The doctors saved me,” he deadpans. “Sorry to disappoint.” Only that turns out to be the wrong thing to say, because while Toye pauses the game and looks away, and Bill does just the opposite, staring so hard at Babe that it’s like he’s trying to convince Babe it’s all good.

It’s not all good. They handle him with kid gloves, and it sucks. 

“Yeah?” Bill asks. “So how was it?”

“Alright, I guess,” Babe responds. He tries not to think of Gene, the concentration written all over his face as he listened to Babe’s heartbeat, or the way his hand brushed Babe’s as he bummed the cigarette.

There’s the sound of a fridge closing loudly, and Babe turns to look towards the kitchen. Luz is walking out with three beers pinched between the fingers of one hand and an opened bag of potato chips in the other. 

“Ah!” Luz says, mouth full. “The prodigal son has returned!”

“Hey, Luz.”

Luz drops the beers off on the warped wood coffee table and then salutes Babe as he collapses on the couch.

“You wanna jump in next round?” Toye offers Babe. “It’s just the four of us, and we’re rotating loser out.” He circles a finger to mean, _Me, Bill, Luz, and Lieb_.

“You not playing?” Babe asks Web.

“Nah, Web’s on strike,” Lieb answers for him. “He won’t play me in anything. Still bitter I beat him in Scrabble last week.”

“ _Kvetch_ is a Yiddish word,” Webster argues, sitting up from his slouch. His book falls off to the wayside. “Just because people know what it means, doesn't mean it should be acceptable in the—”

“Well, excuse the fuck outta me,” Lieb interrupts, hands up mockingly, still holding the videogame controller. “Webster’s Dictionary over here thinks he knows better than the official Scrabble dictionary.”

“That’s not what I'm saying,” Webster says. “Listen, I went to _Harvard_ ; I know what—”

“I don't really want to play, to be honest,” Babe interrupts this time. “Thanks for the offer, though.”

“Yeah, no prob,” Bill says, forced casual. He looks the way he always looks when he's pretending not to be upset: eyebrows low, jaw forward with some sad excuse for a smile on his face. “You coming down for pizza? I’m orderin’ you Hawaiian, so you'll look like an ungrateful son of a bitch if ya don't.”

And Babe just— 

He's tired of making Bill worry. Bill knew Julian, too, but he wasn't _there_ ; he didn't see Julian lying in the wreck. _It’s not your fault, Babe_ , Bill said once, and Babe knows that. Babe didn’t fucking kill Julian; Babe didn’t fucking crash that car. But Babe did something else, something worse, that he’s never told anyone else about—not Bill, not the EMTs, not anyone—and he worries all the time that someone will find out, even though he knows that the knowledge of it, of anything Babe did or said, died that night with Julian. And Babe has to make sure it stays that way.

For all that Bill thinks he’s the one making sure Babe’s okay, it sure feels the other way around.

So Babe says, “Yeah. No, I mean, I’ll come down for pizza, for sure,” and it’s like the entire room exhales.

“Okay,” Bill says. “Alright.”

“I wouldn’t want to play me, either,” Lieb says nonchalantly. “End up a sore fucking loser like Web here—”

“Oh, come on,” Web says. “You are the biggest egotist I have ever met, it’s unbelievable.”

“You’re both unbelievable, Jesus Christ,” Toye mutters, and Babe ducks out of the room.

 

Upstairs, Babe ducks into his bedroom and lets the door close behind him. He feels like an asshole for it, because it's not like those guys are just Bill’s friends. They're his friends, too, and have been for years. It's just that ever since Julian, everyone’s been on tip-toe around him, constantly worrying that the next thing they say is going to be the thing that finally sets him off, and that gets old.

Nothing’s going to set him off. They don't get that. Julian’s dead, and it sucks, but it happens. Babe knows it happens, and him having a meltdown over it isn't going to change anything.

Babe gets that they care. He just wishes they'd show it a little less.

There’s mail sitting on his desk, brought in by Bill, and Babe picks the small stack up. It’s just two things: one thick envelope from the school and a copy of _Wired_ magazine. Babe doesn’t bother opening the envelope. He already knows what it is. Paperwork about next semester, wondering if he plans to return or if he's taking an additional semester off. Good question, Babe thinks. Fuck if he knows what he's doing even an hour from now, and besides, it’s only been a month.

So Babe tosses that back onto his desk and grabs the _Wired_ , and then flops down on his bed, kicking off his boots where his feet dangle over the edge of the mattress. He doesn’t really want to watch tv, but he puts it on anyway, for the noise. Bobby Flay. _Futurama_. Something that’s nothing, just in the background. He tries to flip through the magazine, but can’t quiet his thoughts.

He thinks about Gene. Gene was confident in what he was doing, had warm hands. He seemed like he liked Babe, too, out in the parking lot. Babe wishes he could’ve pressed Gene up against one of their cars and kissed him, and wishes that Gene would’ve wanted him to.

Babe idly palms his cock through his jeans, but doesn’t really chase the feeling. He’s not hard, but he could be, if he wanted to be. 

Gene just seemed like Babe’s type is all, but it hardly matters. 

Out in the living room, the guys all start hollering. Babe can make out Luz saying, “Does a wild bear crap in the woods, son?” and it’s a perfect imitation of Professor Horton. Everyone busts out laughing, and Babe’s almost tempted to join in, because it really was accurate. Instead, he shifts around on his bed and sandwiches his head between two pillows so he can block out the noise and nap.

Hopefully, Bill comes to wake him when the pizza arrives. Babe’s hungry. Babe could eat.

 

Falling asleep at four in the afternoon and sleeping through the night, after only rolling out of bed for a quick pizza break in the middle, means Babe wakes up at the crack of dawn and can’t fall back asleep. He tries, shifting around and settling into a few different positions, but ultimately he just calls it a loss and throws on jeans and sneakers before heading out of the apartment for coffee. He slips into a hoodie once he’s out on the street, and isn’t surprised to find that he’s not the only one out and about. There are a couple of cars out, an old lady walking her dog. People who can’t sleep, either.

Currahee Coffee’s been open for about twenty minutes by the time Babe shoulders open the door, but no one else is there. The overstuffed armchairs, usually the first to go, are empty, and the wooden chairs are all still tucked neatly underneath their tables. The music is off. Half of the lights are yet to be turned on.

 

For a minute, Babe doesn’t even see a barista. He stands at the register like an idiot before quietly rapping his knuckles twice on the countertop, just to himself as he thinks of what the hell to do now. Only that must startle someone, because then there’s the sound of a whole bunch of paper cups being knocked over, and before Babe knows it, someone’s popping their head up from beneath the counter, looking vaguely surprised and a whole lot hungover.

“What?” the guy says. “What is it?”

Babe looks around, not that there’s anyone else to share in the bizarre situation, and then says to the guy, “Um. Are you guys open?” 

It’s half past five by now. Babe knows they’re open, he’s just not sure the guy—Lew, if Babe is to believe the nametag—is aware of it.

“Are we…? What time is it?” Lew asks, and he goes to hold a hand out to block the minimal light, but then thinks better of it and slides on a pair of aviator sunglasses instead.

The door to the employee area swings open, and a tall redhead in a business suit walks out. He looks vaguely surprised to see a customer already, but not like he’s caught unprepared. He says, “If you’re waiting for Lew to make you coffee, you’ll be waiting a long time.”

“Go to hell, Dick,” Lew tells him, and it takes Babe a minute to decide that _Dick_ must be the guy’s name. That, or the redhead just doesn’t give Lew the satisfaction of a reaction. “You don’t even work here.”

“No,” Dick says. “I work here, you just don’t pay me. You pay yourself, and you don’t do _any_ work here.”

“Well, you know,” Lew says, waving his hand in the air, some vague gesture that doesn’t do much to fill in the back half of his sentence. Dick smiles, and rolls his eyes.

“Anyway,” he says to Babe. “Can I get you anything?”

“Uh, just a small coffee, please,” Babe says, and Dick grabs a paper cup off the top of the stack and turns around to the percolator. 

“Light roast? Dark roast?”

“Light, I guess,” Babe says. He can’t tell the difference with all the sugar he puts in it, anyway. Babe glances over at Lew, who has his head propped up on his open hand at the counter. With his sunglasses still on, he reminds Babe vaguely of _Weekend at Bernie’s_. “Hey, are you okay?”

Dick snorts, and Lew answers, “Don’t insult me, kid. This isn’t my first rodeo.”

“Yeah,” Dick adds over his shoulder, “Lew wrote his dissertation on alcohol abuse while he was at _Yale_.”

There’s a joke there, maybe, because Lew smiles into his palm and takes a lazy kick at Dick’s feet without looking back to even see where he is. “Don’t knock it,” he says, “that was a damn good thesis.”

“Honorarium winner,” Dick agrees, and when he turns around, he’s smiling, too, although he isn’t trying to hide it. He slaps a lid on Babe’s coffee, hands it over, and says, “Dollar eighty-five.”

Babe hands over two bucks. “Thanks,” he says, and takes his coffee without bothering to grab a cardboard sleeve. 

Turning to head out the door, Babe notices that it’s snowing a bit, big fat flakes that come down lazily and melt on the sidewalk. It won’t stick. Still, Babe decides against walking home in it and instead collapses into one of the armchairs by the window and plays around on his phone for the next hour.

If he stays long enough, he thinks, he’ll buy a cup for Bill before he heads out.

 

A week later, after a lot of sleeping and not sleeping and spending more time staring out the window of Currahee while screening his ma’s calls, Babe heads back for another exciting round of pretending to be a medical patient. He doesn’t know if he’ll see Gene this time or not, but he still makes sure to put on one of his nicer shirts—one without a hole in the collar—and attempts to make his hair lie flat. It doesn’t really work.

It’s not that he’s expecting or even really hoping for anything, but still. He makes the effort. 

When he shows up, he meets again with one of the program employees and they hand him his illness card to look over. He hangs out in the lobby area for a while while the other patients circle through, and eventually he’s directed into the same makeshift hospital room to wait. Thermometer, stethoscope, reflex hammer. Giant bottle of hand sanitizer. White paper lining the med bench.

Babe hops up on the table, making more noise than he’s ever made in his life, and glances at his card.

 _HISTORY OF ILLNESS_ :

 _You are a 27-year-old man, self-employed as a carpenter, and have always been ‘healthy as a horse,’_ his new card reads. _This weekend you were helping a friend move, including carrying a very heavy sofa up 2 flights of stairs. Yesterday you woke up with bad pain in your right lower back; you could hardly get out of bed. You took some aspirin and a hot shower, which loosened it up enough to go to work, but it only got more and more painful throughout the day. Another hot shower and aspirin helped when you got home. This morning it was really stiff again; there’s no way you can go through another day like yesterday!_

Babe almost can’t believe it, but once he finishes reading over the history of his illness, and reading all the bullet-pointed symptoms following it, he has to read it again, just to understand. He’s not sure what he had expected, but he honestly thought pneumonia was as boring as it got. Now, looking at his new illness card, he sees he was wrong; he’s got a fucking pulled muscle. That or some weird form of cancer. WebMD would probably say cancer.

The door opens, and the first med student doctor of the day walks in. She’s short and has short brown hair, and Babe’s never seen her before. Didn’t see her last time. He knows what this means, but holds out hope until the very end. He works his way through a dozen doctors, but no Gene.

That’s okay, Babe tells himself. It was a longshot anyway.

Once they’ve finished up and Babe’s told he can leave, Babe ducks down the halls of the teaching hospital and out to the lobby. He takes two elevators and makes one wrong turn, forcing him to double back so he can head the right way. Of all the fucking signs in this place, not a damn one is helpful. 

He gets a text from Luz right after he stops a nurse to ask for directions.

 _Toccoa tonight_ , Luz’s text says. _7pm til tomorrow. Be there or I’ll have Bull smack you for me._

Babe rolls his eyes, shoves his phone back in the front pocket of his jeans. Their friend Bull may be as big as a house, but he’s away for the semester, studying in rural Holland while living with a local Dutch family. Besides, the threat isn’t even necessary; Babe’d be going with or without it, because he knows he needs to.

He’s crossing through the lobby when he finally sees Gene, just as Gene’s walking past the fountain and the benches outside. Babe’s not far behind, ducking out the front doors of the hospital, and he opens his mouth before he even realizes what he’s doing. 

“Hey! Gene!” Babe calls out, and then wonders why he did, especially seeing as it's not like he knows the guy. Gene probably doesn’t even remember him.

“Hey, Edward,” Gene says, still just in scrubs, and Babe tsks. Gene doesn’t slow down, but he does turn around and walk backwards the last few steps until Babe catches up.

“You steal a smoke from a guy, the least you can do is call him by the right name,” Babe replies. 

“M’using your _proper_ name, anyway,” Gene says unapologetically. He looks good. The only reason Babe doesn’t stare at how pale his arms look against the dark blue of his scrubs is because Babe doesn’t even let himself look in the first place. Instead, Babe just reaches out to hold Gene’s backpack for him, so that Gene can shrug into his coat before taking his bag back. Babe knocks shoulders with him without even thinking. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he says without any heat, and Gene smiles just enough for Babe to understand that he means it the way other people mean a laugh. Babe stuffs his hands deep into his pockets and tries to ignore the way that makes him feel.

They lapse into silence for a minute after that, just the two of them walking and their boots crunching on the snow, their breaths coming and going in front of them. Babe wants to keep talking with Gene, but he doesn’t really know what to say. He feels like, in the past, he never would’ve shut up, but now, since Julian, he’s just got nothing. Maybe that’s grieving; Bill says that’s grieving, anyway, but Bill uses the term like a Band-Aid to put over every aspect of Babe that has changed.

“You parked way in the back again?” Gene finally asks, breaking the silence.

“Yeah,” Babe says. “Far enough for a quick smoke before I came in.”

“I’m not even gonna say it,” Gene tells him, meaning, _Those’ll kill ya_ , and Babe snorts.

He replies, “Doesn’t matter, I can already hear it in my head. You’ve just ruined every cigarette in the pack for me.”

“As a medical man, it’s an honor,” Gene says solemnly, and then he quotes, “I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.” Babe lets out a strangled cry.

“I didn’t mean it as an honor! Those cost me like nine bucks a pack!” Babe says. “Gene, I could wring your neck right about now.”

“Nah, you wouldn't,” Gene says, and although Babe was only joking, he says it like he has reason to believe it. Whatever that reason is is lost on Babe, and before he can ask, Gene changes the subject. “So where you from, Edward?”

“Here,” Babe says with a shrug. They’re getting closer to their cars, and Babe finds himself slowing down, just to drag it out. “South Philly, born and raised. You?” 

“What, the accent don’t give it away?” Gene asks. “I’m from the bayou. Louisiana, ‘bout an hour and a half outside Baton Rouge.”

“Oh, cool,” Babe says, nodding. “What’s that like?”

“Green,” Gene replies immediately. “And real muggy.”

Babe waves a hand at all the white and grey around them as they stop at their cars, at all the dead trees and concrete. “So just like here,” he says.

“A Yank like you wouldn’t even know which way was up.”

“Yeah, thanks for the vote of confidence,” Babe says dryly.

“I just call ‘em like I see ‘em,” Gene says, just as quietly as he ever says anything, but something in the way he’s just barely smiling, something in the way he’s looking so seriously at Babe— 

But Babe’s fucked up and working on a whole bunch of stuff right now, so Babe won’t do anything about it.

“Anyway,” Babe says loudly. He gestures to his car. “Catch you later?”

Gene takes the sudden shift in stride and says, “Yeah, of course,” and Babe turns and doesn’t look back.

In the driver’s seat, Babe shoves the key into the ignition more forcefully than is probably necessary and shakes his head. “You’re a fucking idiot, Heffron,” he says under his breath, and maybe he is, because if Julian were here, he’d be telling Babe to nut up about this doctor guy already and make a move. But Julian’s not here, and that’s the whole point. Julian’s dead.

Babe doesn’t deserve shit.

A knock on the car window startles Babe out of his thoughts, and when he looks up, Gene’s standing there, his nose red and his eyebrows pinched together.

Babe lowers the window.

“Hey,” Gene says. He looks unsure for the first time since Babe’s met him. “D’you want to maybe go out sometime?”

Babe means to say _no_ , and then marvels over how it comes out sounding remarkably like “Yes.”

 

It’s Thirsty Thursday, so the boys all drag each other out to Toccoa, the local dive that they’ve been hitting up since they day they were old enough to drink, and before that, too, when their fakes were good enough. Used to be that it was Babe doing the dragging, but this time it's Luz. Regardless, they all go, and pile into the back booth that’s been unofficially deemed theirs for the past few years.

“Who keeps ordering us pitchers of Silver Bullet?” Malarkey complains, his eyes darting over Toye’s shoulder. The rest of them may be a couple of pitchers in, but they're with it enough to catch on, and Perco cranes his neck to see back towards the bar.

“I gotta tell ya, Don,” Skip says. “While I admire your taste, I don’t think this tactic of just staring at her from across the bar is working.”

“Shut up,” Malark says, no heat to it. In the corner of the booth, sandwiched between Bill and the wall, Babe feels his phone vibrate in his pocket, and wiggles to get it out. The screen says he has one message from Gene.

_How does Saturday work for you?_

“Hold up,” Perco says. “I still don’t see who we’re talking about. Who are we talking about?”

“No one,” Malarkey groans, momentarily dropping his head into his arms, and Babe doesn’t know why, because he’s not really in the habit of joking around these days, but with his phone hidden under the table, he texts back to Gene, _Should be good now that I don’t have that pneumonia anymore._

Luz leans into Perco and points out, “The brunette that kinda looks like my fraulein from our semester abroad.”

“Oh,” Toye cuts in, “you mean the one who you said smacked you in the mouth for getting fresh? That fraulein?”

“ _Yes_ , that fraulein,” Luz says wistfully, and Toye rolls his eyes.

Babe’s phone vibrates again, this time skittering across the tabletop a bit. He shoots a hand out to snag it before anyone gives him shit for it, though, and tries to ignore the way Bill is—of course—paying half-attention to everything Babe does despite everyone else ribbing Malarkey.

 _Some hotshot at the hospital fix you up?_ Gene asks, and Babe thinks how, although the whole thing was a roleplay, Gene’s not far off the mark. 

Babe sends him, _Hotshot? I mean, he was alright_. He debates sending a wink after that, or at least a smiley face so Gene knows he’s kidding, but it looks dumb when he types one in, and so he deletes it. Gene’ll either get Babe’s sense of humor or he won’t.

“I gotta tell ya, Don,” Bill’s saying when Babe tunes back in. “Muck’s got a point: you’re not gonna get her number from all the ways over here. Or you want I should go get it for ya?”

Malarkey pales at that, and while Babe’s finding it hard to really get invested in any of this, he does at least understand Malarkey’s reaction. Girls like Bill. Girls _always_ like Bill, and if Bill gets there first, Malarkey’s done for.

“I’m going,” Malarkey says, tumbling out of the booth. “Fuckin’ A, I’m going.” He takes a few steps and then turns around, one finger pointing at their table from around his empty pint glass. “Whatever you’re thinking: don’t.”

“I wasn’t thinking a thing,” Bill says solemnly, a hand to his heart.

“I don’t even know how to think,” Luz agrees with a wide smile, and the table laughs.

Muck calls out, “That, at least, is true,” and the table erupts again into laughter and half-formed insults as Malarkey heads to the bar.

Babe’s phone buzzes again, and this time, Babe opens the message without first tucking the phone underneath the table and away from prying eyes.

 _Alright, Edward. I can work with a low standard,_ Gene wrote, and Babe can’t help himself. Here he is, texting the hottest person he’s ever seen, who is both smart and funny in addition to sexy, and they’re joking that Babe’s got low standards. It’s the dumbest thing Babe’s ever heard, and he can’t help it when he lets out a laugh that’s really more just a snort, the corners of his mouth turned slightly up.

 _For the last time, it’s_ —Babe has typed out, and it’s only then that he realizes how quiet the table has gotten despite the noise in the bar. He looks up and everyone’s just staring back at him, and when they notice him noticing, they all rush to appear busy, Perco flicking his lighter open and closed, Luz running his fingers through his hair, Muck downing the back half of his beer. Bill’s the only one who doesn’t look away.

“What?” Babe asks, defensively, and then feels like an asshole for it, because if there’s anyone Babe doesn’t have to be defensive around, it’s Bill.

“Nah, nothin’,” Bill says, shrugging, all feigned nonchalance. “Just wondering who’s got you crackin’ up over there.” 

And he says it like—like he’s hopeful, maybe, or like he’s both jealous and happy, but mostly just relieved, and Babe feels like a dick for it, although he’s not sure he has reason to. Because Babe laughs all the time, whenever something’s funny. There’s no way he’s gone since— 

_No_ _way_ it’s been since— 

But maybe it has. Bill seems to think it has, and whether or not that’s true doesn’t matter. Bill’s what matters, because the two of them? They stick together, South Philly until the day they die. Bill’s always gonna be what matters to Babe.

“It’s, uh,” Babe starts, trying to find the words to explain Gene, but he can’t and so he gives up. Instead, he pulls a face at himself and goes to apologize.

Bill cuts him off before he can with a “Shut the fuck up, Heffron,” as he slings an arm around Babe’s shoulders. Then he turns to the rest of the group, “Next round says Don goofs it.”

“No bet,” Luz says.

“Dumb fucking bet,” Toye mutters, just loud enough for Babe to hear. And Babe?

“I’ll take it,” he says, a look of challenge on his face, and if nothing else, it’s worth it for the way Bill lights up like a goddamn Christmas tree. 

 

Babe meets Gene downstairs on the street, right outside Babe’s building. It’s not that Babe doesn’t want to invite him up, because _fuck_ , Babe would skip the whole first date and go right to the happy ending if it were up to him, but Bill’s home. Babe just doesn’t want to deal with that, with the introductions and then the inevitable explanations. It’s just easier this way.

“Hi, Edward,” Gene calls out as he walks up, and he looks really fucking good. He’s wearing dark wash jeans and a black peacoat, his pale skin flushed red in the cold. He’s holding a make-your-own six pack of beer in one hand, his other hand stuffed deep in his coat pocket.

“Jeez, that’s it,” Babe says in lieu of hello. He’s trying hard not to smile and failing miserably. “Date: ruined.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. I’ve never been too good at this,” Gene admits, stopping in front of Babe. And then, as casual as can be, as if didn’t know what it would do to Babe, Gene adds, “You look real nice.”

Babe looks exactly how he’s always looked, hasn’t really changed anything since the last time they saw each other, but he still feels his cheeks heat. He looks down at his shoes and then feels like an asshole for it, looks Gene in the eyes as he says, “Thanks. You too.”

Gene smiles. He holds up the six pack. “Thought we’d go to Pizza Brain. BYOB.”

“Now we’re talking,” Babe says, and he wipes off an imaginary bead of sweat from his forehead. “Pizza is my speed.”

“Yeah, I have you pegged,” Gene says, his voice still quiet and his smile still small, but he says it like a brag, and that makes Babe roll his eyes. He bumps shoulders with Gene and then strategically leaves his arm where it is, so that it’s pressing firmly into Gene’s. 

His brilliant plan doesn’t last very long. Suddenly, Gene’s moving away, and Babe’s entire body locks up, his mind racing with thoughts of why—but before Babe has the time to really get going with the panic, Gene’s lacing his fingers through Babe’s.

He looks over at Babe, like he’s not sure if it's alright for him to be holding Babe’s hand, and so Babe tightens his fingers just a fraction. Gene nods almost imperceptibly, as if to himself, and then swipes a thumb over the back of Babe’s hand.

“Have me pegged, my ass,” Babe says, and Gene decides not to comment by pulling a face that is comment enough in and of itself.

They head over to Pizza Brain like that, the two of them, and then order two half-pies because they can’t agree on toppings. Eventually they decide to share the Lucy Waggle and the Barbie Ernst, and they steadily work their way through the six pack as they talk. Babe’s knees knock into Gene’s underneath the table.

“Mamere—my grandmother—she’s the reason I’m in med school,” Gene tells him, licking sauce from the corner of his mouth. “She was a _traiteuse_.”

“A what?” Babe asks.

“A _traiteuse_. Mostly outdated now, I guess, but they practice faith healing. She’d lay her hands on people, cure them. Take away their sickness, cancer, you name it.”

“For real?” Babe’s never heard of anything like that, other than the whackjobs on tv.

Gene laughs a little, a huff of breath, and says, “No, not for real. But they thought it was for real, and sometimes that’s what matters, I guess.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Babe says, and he tries not to think about what Julian thought was for real the night he died. Babe takes a swig of beer, just to fill the space so he doesn’t have to talk, and then he mentally curses himself. The night was going so well before his brain decided to bring that up.

“What about you?” Gene asks. “What’re you studying?”

And Babe just thinks—fuck it. _Fuck it._ Because Julian is dead and Babe doesn’t deserve to be on this date to begin with, Gene is so far out of his league. So Babe just tells the truth. Not much to lose, really.

“I’m taking the semester off, actually,” Babe says, and Gene nods. He doesn’t give Babe the surprised _oh!_ that he usually gets, and for that, Babe is grateful. “Maybe not, uh. Maybe not a first date story, but I was in a car crash last month. My best friend was…” Babe stares blankly at the pizza between them and gestures vaguely in the air. 

“Hey,” Gene says gently. He knocks their knees purposefully under the table.

“Anyway,” Babe says forcefully, and he grabs another slice of pizza. “I was studying computer science. Dunno what I want to do with it, but I’m gonna finish eventually. My ma would kill me if I didn’t.”

And Gene doesn’t stutter over the playful mention of death, doesn’t think of Julian and then second- and triple-guess what he’s going to say because of it. Instead Gene just looks at Babe, and one corner of his mouth tilts up.

“Can’t have that,” Gene says.

“No,” Babe agrees, smiling small right back at him. “Can’t have that.”

 

After ice cream at Little Baby’s where they share a few scoops of the more bizarre flavors, they hop in an uber and head back to Babe’s. Gene doesn’t ask to come inside and Babe doesn’t ask him either, but they do stand close together on Babe’s stoop, their fingers tangled together.

“I had a really good time tonight,” Babe tells him honestly.

“Yeah, me too,” Gene says. “Can I see you again?”

And Babe wants to joke, wants to say, _I dunno, can you?_ or maybe something like, _Depends if the food will be as good as tonight’s was_ , but he doesn’t because he wants that, wants to see Gene again. So instead, he just says, “Of course,” and more awkwardly, “You’ve got my number…”

“Alright,” Gene says. Babe wants to kiss him. Babe looks at Gene’s mouth and then back up, and he sees Gene looking at his mouth, too, so he thinks they’re on the same page. Prays they’re on the same page. All it would take is Babe leaning in, not even very far because Gene’s right there— 

Only then _Gene’s_ the one leaning in, slowly, like he’s unsure, like Babe hasn’t been broadcasting how into Gene he is. His eyes flick up to Babe’s from where they were, looking at Babe’s mouth, and so Babe is the one who closes the gap, presses their lips together slightly off-center. 

Gene’s lips are warm against Babe’s, and the rest of Babe is freezing, but he could stay there all night, holding Gene’s hand and kissing Gene. Only eventually, he pulls back, or maybe Gene pulls back, and they just look at each other. It was barely anything, as far as kisses go, but it leaves Babe dazed.

“I’ll call you,” Gene says, stepping back and dropping Babe’s hand.

“Or text me,” Babe offers. “Pony express, carrier pigeon. Message in a bottle.”

Gene smiles as he walks backwards towards the uber, still and always looking at Babe. “Will do.”

Babe shoots him a wave and then, rather than watch Gene’s car pull away from the curb, Babe heads inside and up the stairs to the third floor.

The lights are still on when Babe finally shoulders open the door to his apartment, but it's quiet, so Babe tries to be quiet, too, just in case Bill’s asleep. It turns out he’s not—Babe finds him in the living room studying—and he seems to find Babe a welcome distraction.

“Yowza!” Bill says, slamming his textbook shut, and he means it as both a _hello_ and a _fuck this shit_. 

“Yo,” Babe says. He collapses on the sectional opposite Bill, still in his coat, still thinking of Gene. Babe really likes him.

“Where you been?” Bill asks. “I swear, you take one semester off and suddenly you're too good to suffer with me.”

“I’ve always been too good to suffer with you,” Babe says, and Bill lets out a bark of laughter.

“Ah, you little shit,” he says, and then he scrubs one open palm over his face. “You missed another one of Smokey’s poetry recitals, by the way. Earlier at the bar.”

“Yeah?” Babe asks. He usually likes those. “Who got shamed this time?”

“George Smith. Remember him?” Bill asks, and then he starts smiling and shaking his head as he thinks of it. “He slipped on a patch of black ice on the way over and pulled good ol’ Tab down with him, the poor bastard. Cracked his melon something good on the cement.”

“Who, Smithy?” Babe asks.

“No, Tab. He kept saying he was fine even as we were pressing napkins to the back of his head,” Bill says. 

“Sounds like him,” Babe says. 

“And I guess he was fine, in the end. Didn’t pay for a single one of his drinks all night.”

“Ah.” That’s Bill-speak for _Tab was better than fine_. 

Bill puts his feet up on the coffee table and pushes his textbook away with his heels as he stretches out. He relaxes back into the couch for a second but then sits up and uses his toes to slide the tv remote close enough for him to reach without moving much more. He turns on the tv and glances at Babe.

“Where were you tonight, anyway?”

“Just… around,” Babe says with a shrug. He doesn’t really want to bring up Gene, not after just one date. Babe knows how Bill is, and Bill’d make a big deal of it, ask all these questions and make a big show of being happy for Babe. And he _would_ be happy for Babe, is the thing, but Babe’s not really ready to deal with it.

“Well, you shoulda come out,” Bill says, flipping through the channels. “S’not the same without you.”

“Next time,” Babe says, and he might even mean it.

 

Babe sees Gene again a few days later, when Gene’s got a long lunch break and Babe needs a break from staring blankly at the thick envelope containing the paperwork that he needs to do in order to get re-enrolled the next semester. It’s probably not even that difficult, but Babe starts feeling kind of anxious when he thinks about opening it, and he keeps picturing Julian spread out at their usual table in the library, and the lazy way he’d wave when he looked up and saw that Babe was crossing the lobby towards him.

So Babe puts that aside and goes to see Gene, and even though there’s a perfectly fine cafeteria in the hospital, Babe brings them lunch.

“Alright,” Babe says. “I got one whiz wit, and one provolone witout. You can take your pick or we can go halves.”

“Wow,” Gene says, “I didn’t realize the accent could get any heavier than it already was.”

“Oh, like you’re one to talk,” Babe says, and Gene smiles like he’s been caught.

“Halves,” he says. “I haven’t had enough of ‘em to really have a preference.”

And Babe just freezes at that, as he’s taking the foil-wrapped cheesesteaks out of the bag. Because cheesesteaks? Cheesesteaks are a staple in the Heffon household. His ma would bring them in whenever she didn’t have time to cook, whenever other people would be ordering in pizza or Chinese.

“How is that even possible?” Babe asks. “You’ve been here like two and a half years.”

“I dunno,” Gene says. “Back home—I mean, we have po’boys and all, but my mama was always more into three-pots. Y’know—meat, veg, rice. So I do a lot of that still.”

“That doesn’t get boring?” Babe asks, but Gene just smiles and shakes his head. He takes a whiz half when Babe hands it to him.

“Nah, I grew up on Cajun food; it doesn’t get boring.”

Babe waves his cheesesteak and says, “S’what I grew up on.”

“Alright, so this today, and next time we go out for gumbo and cornbread,” Gene proposes, and then he takes a bite of his sandwich. “So which one’s better, anyway?” 

“Huh?” Babe responds. His mouth is full, and he’s less than graceful about it.

“You know,” Gene explains. “Pat’s or Geno’s?” He takes a bite of his cheesesteak, and Babe likes the guy, so he’ll be as nice as he can about it, but some things have to change.

“Jesus Christ.” Babe says. “First of all, _no_. Second of all, their whole rivalry thing is a scam. And third of all? It doesn’t matter, ‘cause neither of the two is the best.”

“Then which is the best?” Gene asks. Babe stares at him like he’s got three heads.

“Which is the best?” he asks. “ _This_ one. The one you’re eating. I’m not gonna bring you second-rate lunch.”

“Is this where I just thank you, then, and say it’s really good?”

“Yeah, wouldn’t hurt,” Babe tells him.

“Thank you, Edward,” Gene says dutifully, knocking his dress shoes into Babe’s snow boots. “It’s really good.”

“Killin’ me over here,” Babe mutters, and takes another bite of his cheesesteak.

They spend the next half hour or so just talking as they eat, Gene about his family and his rotation at the hospital, Babe about Bill and growing up in the city. A couple of Gene’s classmates come over to say hi, and Gene introduces him, not as Gene’s boyfriend or anything, but just as Babe. They don’t stay long, and Babe’s secretly glad about it.

“Sorry ‘bout them,” Gene says. “They’re just nosy.”

Babe shrugs. “That’s nothing. Wait ‘til you meet my friends.”

He only realizes what he’s said when it’s too late, and his pretty presumptuous statement is left out there, hanging in the air. Maybe that’s moving too fast, for Gene. Maybe Gene doesn’t want to meet Babe’s friends.

“Yeah,” Gene says. “Alright, then we’ll compare notes.”

“Anyway,” Babe says, changing the subject so he doesn’t look like an idiot. He points to their balled-up cheesesteak wrappers. “Which did you like best?”

“The whiz wit,” Gene says, attempting to lay the Philly accent on thick. It doesn’t work well, but Babe loves it anyway.

“ _The_ _whiz wit_ ,” he says, imitating the way Gene had said it. Then, more seriously, “A good choice, though. Julian used to just order a steak without. No cheese, no nothin’. Awful.”

And although this is the first time Babe’s ever mentioned Julian by name, and although there’s no possible way Gene could be sure of what happened, he smiles like he used to know Julian, too. He says, “Everyone’s got flaws, and if that was his, I guess he got off light.”

“Oh, Julian had a million flaws,” Babe says as if Julian were right there next to him, as if he were just trying to rile Julian up. “He could not drink anything quietly if you paid him to. The world’s loudest glugger.”

And as Babe says that, he realizes that he’s joking about Julian. Like Julian’s alive still, or like Babe hadn’t done what he did that night. Like somehow the past tense is easier, with Gene.

The present tense is easier with Gene, too.

 

On Thursday morning, following another one of Babe’s sleepless binges, Babe walks with Bill to his class, just to get out. The cold bites at his cheeks and the slush is long since dirty, but it feels good to be outside. Sometimes, when he’s stuck in their apartment for too long, he starts to feel closed in, and it reminds him of the wreck, of having to crawl out of the broken passenger’s side window as Julian called for him.

“You’re a lunatic, is what you are,” Bill says to him when Babe lies and says he just woke up but could use the walk. Babe can’t tell for certain, because Bill’s knit hat is pulled down so low over his eyes, but Babe’s pretty certain Bill’s eyebrows are lifted to his hairline.

“What else is new?” Babe asks, and seeing as they’re almost at Currahee Coffee, he adds, “Wanna buy me a coffee?”

“What? No,” Bill says, but he steers the two of them into the cafe, anyway. 

It’s a lot more crowded than it was the last time Babe was here, probably because the work crowd is swinging in on their way to the office. Out of morbid curiosity more so than anything else, Babe scans behind the bar, but doesn’t see either of the two baristas from the other day. He’s honestly not sure why he even looked; other than their names, Babe doesn’t know a thing about them. They’re not any better or any worse than the current barista, who’s wearing a nametag that says _Harry_ , and who keeps smiling over Bill’s shoulder at some girl who keeps smiling back

“I’m gonna get a slice of lemon pound cake,” Bill says, maybe to Babe, but probably to himself. The one person ahead of them in line steps out of the way to wait for their drink at the other end, and Bill steps up to the counter. “You think Fran’ll still love me when I’m fat?”

“Probably not,” Babe says. “Because I’ll still be thin, and that’s when I’ll swoop in.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re a heartless bastard.” Bill adds to the barista, “Not you, him.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured,” Harry says dryly. “What can I get you?”

“Just a large—” he looks back at Babe, who’s behind him in line, rolls his eyes and then amends, “two large coffees.” 

“Sure,” Harry says. He grabs two paper cups from the stack and turns around to the percolator. 

When he hands them their drinks, Babe takes his and heads immediately to the cream and sugar, leaving Bill to pay. Babe’ll hit Bill back for it the next time they grab coffee, or he’ll buy Bill a beer the next time they’re out. Or he’ll just make a family size box of mac and cheese and let Bill eat half, call it even. Neither of them are really keeping score.

Waiting for Bill, who now is holding up the line and talking to Harry like they’re long lost brothers, Babe leans against the counter and pulls his phone out of his front pocket. It’s a quarter after nine; Babe wonders if that’s too early to text Gene, or if med students start as early as Babe thinks they do.

Babe looks up from the lockscreen of his phone. Bill’s got his head back, laughing, and the barista’s leaning forward over the counter, laughing with him. Babe calls himself an idiot and opens a new text message. 

_What’re you up to this weekend?_ Babe types out, but then shakes his head and deletes it. _Do you want to_ , he starts typing, and then deletes that, too. It’s all too formal. Babe doesn’t talk like that. He tries to think of how he’d text Bill, or how he would’ve texted Julian, and while Gene’s different because what Babe feels for him is different, it’s still the same general concept.

So Babe types, _I seem to remember being promised some gumbo_ … and then hits send before he has the chance to overthink it.

Gene’s text ellipsis pops up almost immediately afterwards, and Babe stares at it, waiting. It's embarrassing how Gene can make him feel like this. Babe hasn't felt like this in a long time. 

_Can't text much but you free tomorrow after SP exams?_

_Sure_ , Babe says. Short and sweet. No use writing more if Gene is busy.

He shoves his phone back in his pocket just as Bill walks up and pulls a face.

“Who ya always texting?” Bill asks, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Doris or Hinkle?”

Babe rolls his eyes. Everyone has a crazy ex or a terrible mistake of a hook-up story, but Babe’s are the ones everyone always seems to remember.

“Get the fuck outta here,” Babe says, shoving Bill just a little, and the two of them head out of the cafe. He feels, for some reason, like he owes it to Bill, so he adds, “Just this guy I met the other day. Gene.”

“Gene, huh?” Bill asks, and Babe rolls his eyes and changes the subject.

“So you and the barista best friends now or what?”

“You're still my one and only,” Bill promises. “But nah, I only just met the guy. His girl was there, though, and she's friends with Fran, so. I think she wants to go on double dates.” Bill shakes his head in disbelief.

Back out in the snow, the two of them continue trudging along towards Bill’s class. The coffee cup is warm in his hands, even through his glove, and leaves steam in the air.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Bill asks.

“What?”

“I bought you coffee, so you get to come out with us tomorrow night,” Bill says.

“Get to or got to?” Babe grumbles, and Bill just laughs, tosses an arm around Babe’s shoulders until Babe shoves him off.

 

The next day, Babe earns another hundred bucks or so sitting on the med table and letting fake doctors prod at him.

_HISTORY OF ILLNESS:_

_You are a previously healthy twenty-five-year-old man. You have been having chest discomfort about twice a week for the last two weeks. It is sharp, associated with difficulty getting a deep breath. It seems to come on mostly at work or when you are driving. It lasts about a half-hour at a time. You’ve tried Tylenol, Advil, drinking cold water, and antacids without much benefit. It doesn’t radiate. It is severe enough to interrupt your work but not excruciating. You haven’t had any heartburn or stomach symptoms. You are concerned that it could be a heart problem_. 

Without fail, they all ask him if he smokes. Yeah, he tells them, about fifteen cigarettes a day, but according to his card, he's trying to quit. Trying not to have a heart attack or whatever. He doesn't do drugs; he does exercise.

Babe leaves with fake instructions for a follow-up and a list of imaginary referrals, and goes to meet Gene.

It's funny, Babe thinks, because Doctor Gene and First Date Gene are totally different from Cajun Gene, from Gene In His Element, from Gene More Or Less At Home. That's how he seems at the restaurant, talking to the elderly hostess who keeps using all sorts of crazy bayou slang Babe’s never heard before. 

“Cher,” the hostess says, “Armand’s gonna have a fit when he hears you were veiller with a sweet in here. You know he gets mad, mad when he can’t spy.” 

“What he don't know won't hurt him,” Gene says, smiling a little like he’s embarrassed. He’s slipping into a thicker accent than usual, and Babe wonders if this is what he sounds like at home. “Distract him with somma that rahdoht of yours.”

The hostess tsks. “Rahdoht, my eye. ‘Sides, only way for us old folks to live is through you, pauvre bête, so quit your bahbin,” she teases, and honest to god pinches his cheek. She places their menus down on the table and then looks at Babe and smiles warmly. “You let me know I can get you anything, cher, okay? Don't you be honte to ask.”

“Uh, yeah,” Babe says. “Thank you.” And then once she’s gone, Babe turns to Gene with an incredulous look on his face and asks, “ _What_ was that?”

Gene covers his face with his hands and slouches in his seat. He’s beet red. “That’s just how we—she knows that I'm from—she’s just checking in, is all.”

Babe is torn between dragging it out—because it _is_ funny, watching Gene squirm like that—or taking pity on him and putting him out of his misery. Babe goes with the latter, only because he likes Gene so much. He picks up his menu.

“Alright, do I need to read this thing, or ya just gonna order for me, or what?” Babe asks.

“Wanna split a couple things?” Gene asks. “All the best stuff?”

“Sure,” Babe says, and when the waitress comes over, Babe just lets Gene handle it. They start with an order of fried green tomatoes and split a bowl of gumbo, and then go halves on both jambalaya and shrimp n’ grits. It’s a lot of food, but Babe’s got a never ending stomach, sometimes, and he does what he can.

“So what’d’you think?” Gene asks, halfway through. 

“Way good,” Babe tells him honestly. “There’s a lot going on in these things, huh? The gumbo’s my favorite so far.”

“Yeah, that’s my favorite, too,” Gene tells him. “My mama makes a mean gumbo, but it’s about eight hundred times spicier than this. As she says, it’s _spicy, spicy_.”

“Right, so say it twice and it means _very_. Cajun. Got it.” Babe says, and Gene laughs but nods. Babe can pick up on some things, and he guesses the most basic of Cajun slang is one of them. “This isn’t spicy for you?” 

“Nah,” Gene says. “Still good though. We should do a crawfish boil sometime when it’s warmer, if we can find fresh crawfish up here. Shrimp, otherwise.” 

Babe smiles just because he can’t play it cool and hold it back. He likes that, how Gene talks like he’s sticking around, no games or any of that. Just straightforward, coming right at Babe with what he thinks and what he wants.

“I could be down with a crawfish boil,” Babe tells him. “I could be very down with a crawfish boil.”

“Alright, then we’ll do it,” Gene says. 

They swap plates so that Babe can have some more of the shrimp n’ grits, and Gene smiles at him from over top of his fork. A while passes like that, where neither of them says anything, just sitting there eating and smiling like idiots at each other. Babe moves his foot under the table so that his shin crosses Gene’s, and smiles some more.

 

They go back to Gene’s apartment, afterwards. Babe knows what Gene means when he says, _coffee, or I think I have some beer_ , and if the way Gene smiles small and shy is any indication, Gene knows what Babe means, too, when he says, _Yeah, I could go for some coffee._

It's not rocket science, Babe thinks.

Gene lives close to the hospital, in a student housing apartment that he shares with a classmate and that’s a lot neater than the place Babe shares with Bill. There’s a really nice leather couch up against the wall, and big tv standing atop an old milk crate, but other than that, it's pretty sparse, just a whole load of books and papers scattered all over the kitchen table.

“So, uh,” Gene asks. One hand is rubbing the back of his neck. “Did you say beer? Or coffee?”

Babe smiles. He wants to laugh, but doesn't. “ _Gene_ ,” he says instead, like _idiot_. He steps into Gene’s space and tugs on the hem of Gene’s shirt. If he were smoother, he’d have tucked his fingers into the front pocket of Gene’s pants and tugged him closer that way, but he’s not. Babe may be a bit reckless and confident when he knows someone likes him, but that doesn't make him suave.

“Yeah,” Gene agrees, letting out a huff of laughter. “Told you I was no good at this.”

And maybe neither of them knows what the fuck they're doing.

“I think you're doing pretty alright,” Babe says, and then he leans in and kisses Gene. It's meant to be quick, just to express his interest, but then Gene’s mouth opens against his, and Babe pulls Gene closer and closer with his hands on Gene’s hips, and he loses track of time.

They stand there, kissing in the kitchen for a while, their kiss sloppy and suggestive, all tongue and no teeth, Babe rocking into Gene’s hips. Gene’s hand is on the side of Babe’s neck and jaw, and Babe thinks back to that first day, when Gene had listened to Babe’s racing heart. Wonders how they got here, to exactly where Babe wants to be.

Gene breaks away first and runs the flat of his thumb over Babe’s lower lip, where Gene’s own lips just were. His eyes are dark when he reaches down to grab Babe’s hand and says, “C’mon.”

He leads the two of them back to his bedroom, which is just like the rest of the apartment: neat and tidy, but also sort of empty, like he doesn’t spend much time there. Babe would comment on it, but he’d rather be on Gene’s bed, so instead Babe takes off his shirt and kicks off his shoes, and spreads himself out on the mattress. 

Gene’s still standing at the foot of the bed, mouth slightly open as he looks at Babe.

“Don’t leave me hangin’,” Babe says to him, and Gene blinks heavily, crawls up the mattress so that he’s on all fours, knees on either side of Babe.

“No, that wouldn’t do,” Gene teases, and he leans down to kiss Babe again, holding himself up so that a gap remains between them. Babe grabs at the meat of Gene’s ass to pull him closer, forcing Gene to lie down along the line of Babe’s entire body, and then he slides his hands up over Gene’s back. He groans when his hands find cloth.

“Off,” he says. “C’mon, take this off.”

“Yeah,” Gene agrees, breaking away from a kiss only to prop himself up with one hand by Babe’s head, using the other to tug his shirt off by the back of the collar. When he settles back down, his chest is pressed into Babe’s, warm and smooth and all skin, skin, skin.

“Better,” Babe says into Gene’s mouth, and he wraps one leg around the back of Gene’s calf and rocks more steadily up into Gene’s hips, into the hard line of Gene’s cock. He wants to get Gene naked, wants to touch him. Wants to make him feel good, see what his face looks like when he comes. 

“What’d’you want?” Gene asks. He trails his lips from the corner of Babe’s mouth to the corner of his jaw, and then down to his neck. “Tell me.”

“Uh,” Babe says. He can’t fucking think straight. He wants everything with Gene, and Gene’s running the flat of his tongue over the side of Babe’s neck, then replacing his tongue with teeth, and back again. His mouth is so, so warm on Babe’s skin. Babe’s entire world narrows down to that point, to Gene’s mouth on his neck.

Gene sneaks a hand between their two bodies, brushes his open palm over the zipper of Babe’s jeans, and Babe lets out a moan without meaning to. He rocks up harder into Gene’s hips, his hand, and Gene tucks his fingers into the waistband of Babe’s jeans, just over the button.

“Can I?” he asks, and Babe blinks in confusion, just for a second.

“Yeah,” he says back. “Fuck, yeah, of course.” Babe reaches down to help Gene with the button, and then helps unbutton Gene’s own pants, and then the both of them are shimmying out of their jeans. 

The second they’re naked, Gene lies back down atop of Babe and kisses his collarbones, the hollow of his throat, down his sternum. His cock is hot and heavy on Babe’s thigh.

“Makin’ me look lazy, here,” Babe says, and Gene mashes his smile into Babe’s ribcage, his laughter coming out in breaths across Babe’s skin.

“I’ll put you to work in a minute,” Gene says, but Babe’s sick of waiting, and so he reaches a hand down between their bodies and wraps his fingers around Gene’s length. 

It’s worth it, if for nothing else than the sharp intake of Gene’s breath and the noise that escapes his throat right after that. Gene’s hips stutter almost immediately as Babe runs his thumb over the head of Gene’s cock, smearing the precome there.

“Ah, _merde_ , hold on,” Gene says, and without moving his hips, he stretches his upper body towards the end table, and digs around in the drawer. He pulls out a bottle of lube and squeezes some out onto Babe’s hand, probably more than they need. It’s cold, but Babe tries to warm it up by curling his fingers into his palm, spreading the lube around.

Eventually, Babe just thinks, _fuck it,_ and reaches down for Gene’s cock again, and for his own.

“Yeah,” Gene says, and he props himself up with one hand. Babe can see him look down between their bodies, at where Babe’s hand is wrapped around both of them. 

“Fuck, _Gene_ ,” he says. Gene reaches down and wraps his free hand half around Babe’s, and then they’re moving together, wrapped in Babe’s hand, and in Gene’s hand, Gene’s fingers in all the spaces that Babe’s can’t reach, and Babe feels everything building and building at the base of his spine, in his legs, his stomach. He wants to come, but wants Gene to come first, more. Babe’s hips keep rocking and rocking of their own accord as Gene kisses him again.

“I like you like this,” Gene says, his lips against Babe’s. 

“What, naked?” Babe asks breathlessly. Gene shakes his head. 

“Tastin’ like Cajun food,” Gene tells him, and it’s the dumbest, most embarrassing thing, but that’s when Babe comes, all over their hands and their stomachs, becoming useless and boneless and drained. Gene doesn’t seem to mind, just lets Babe’s hand fall to the side as he jacks himself off. Without thinking, Babe reaches out and runs his fingertips down the tensing muscles of Gene’s stomach.

Gene makes a sound like he’s been punched in the gut and comes. His one arm is shaking from holding himself up, and when he’s finished, Babe curls the fingers of his clean hand around Gene’s bicep, tugs gently so that Gene collapses and rests his full weight on top of Babe. They’re both a mess. Gene kisses his shoulder.

“You good?” Gene asks, and Babe rolls his eyes. Is he _good_? Seriously?

“I’m good, good,” Babe says instead, and Gene’s lips curve against Babe’s skin.

 

Babe hops out of his uber at the bar almost forty-five minutes late, his phone full with texts from Bill that say things like, _Are you on your way?_ and, _You’re still coming right?_ and, _If you flake I’m telling Liebgott you were the one who spilled soda on his Dick Tracy print_. Babe hadn’t responded to any of them, too busy memorizing Gene’s collarbones and the angle of his hips, but that last one almost got him.

Right outside the door to Toccoa, Babe hands the bouncer his i.d. and then heads inside. Everyone’s in the back, crowded around their usual booth—Toye looking unhappy wedged in the corner, Lieb and Web hunched over a cellphone, Malarkey and his boys laughing. Perco’s there, pouring the last of the pitcher into his pint glass. Babe doesn’t see Bill, but Luz, trying to drink from his pint glass while still keeping his cigarette pinned between his lips, is the first to see Babe. Luz raises his glass in a salute and, with his smoke still pinched in one corner of his mouth, hollers, “Babe-raham!” 

“Hey, guys,” Babe says. He points to the empty pitcher on the table. “Need me to grab another while I’m up?”

“Yeah, sure,” Liebgott says. He looks up from his phone and then a second later adds, “But be more careful this time, huh?”

Babe doesn’t get it. He asks, “What?”

Skip adds, “It’s just a dangerous world out there, bud, you know?”

“Those fucking vampire books,” Toye says, lip curled in disgust, and Babe has no clue what’s going on, doesn’t like the way they’re all staring at him expectantly.

“Right,” he says, and he jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m just gonna—”

“You’ve got a giant hickey on your neck,” Perco states loudly, and Babe can feel himself flush, his whole face on fire before his hand even gets up to cover his neck.

“Other side,” Web says helpfully, and Babe scowls. He flicks off everyone at the table.

“Fuck you guys,” he says with an eyeroll, and their laughter follows him up to the bar.

Babe wedges himself in between a girl with long blonde hair and a guy with a backwards snapback, and waves a little to get Lip’s attention. Lip’s the bartender, and has been for all the years Babe’s been going there. Real nice guy, sort of unassuming all year ‘round until summer comes, and then he shows up in tank tops and is all smiles and huge biceps.

Not that Babe’s looking. Babe learned early on that the spooky guy who sometimes takes up shop at the end of the bar is Lip’s boyfriend, and Lip’s boyfriend looks like he deals very comfortably in death threats.

“Hey, Babe,” Lip says when he slides over. “Been a while. How’s it going?” 

“Good,” Babe says with a shrug. “Just busy.” The lie of the century, but it’s not like Lip cares. They’re just making smalltalk. “Hey, can I get a pitcher of our usual?”

“Yeah, sure,” Lip says, and as he turns around, he almost bumps into someone else behind the bar. “Shit, sorry.”

“Happens,” the guy says easily, and when he turns to survey the crowd and Babe can see his face, Babe knows the guy.

“Hey!” Babe says. It’s on bad instinct; Babe doesn’t actually know the guy. It’s Lew, from Currahee. Babe’s seen him exactly once.

“ _You_ ,” Lew says, like Babe is someone. 

Lip calls over his shoulder, “You two know each other?”

“No,” Babe says, at the same time Lew says, “Intimately.”

“Right,” Lip says, and he turns around to place the full pitcher in front of Babe.

“He saw me opening Currahee when Harry called out sick, and he thought I was dying,” Lew explains, and compared to then, Lew looks a lot better now. A lot less miserable, anyway. “I took it easy the night before, too.”

“Can’t imagine Dick was too pleased,” Lip says.

“The only reason we work is because he’s a teetotaler who won’t steal my booze,” Lew says, and Babe can’t tell if he’s joking.

So instead Babe asks, “You work here, too?”

“Kid, I _own_ both places,” Lew corrects. “Anyway, Lip—his pitcher’s on the house, alright? See you around, kid.” And then he ducks into the back and out of Babe’s sight.

“Right,” Babe says, an echo of Lip from a few seconds ago, and Lip just smiles and shrugs.

Back at their table, Bill gives him a hero’s welcome (“It’s like my son finally came home from the war or some shit, you made me wait so long”) and makes everyone scoot over so Babe has a seat in the booth. It takes him even less time than the boys before he’s asking Babe, “What the hell is that on your neck?”

“None of your fucking business, that’s what,” Babe says, but there’s not really any heat behind it.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bill says, and he reaches for the pitcher. “Gimme that.”

And Babe thinks that’s it, that’s the big announcement done with, nothing else to worry about. _Gene isn’t just someone I text, here is my hickey, and how about the Phillies?_ Good to move on. Bill’s a smart guy; Bill can put two and two together. Babe should’ve known better, though, because he knows Bill better. Bill was just waiting for everyone else to be minding their own business before he minded Babe’s, and it’s when everyone is laughing at Luz’s impression of Professor Sink cursing out a visiting professor with _Nuts!_ that he strikes.

“You really like this guy, huh?” Bill asks quietly. He shreds his coaster with his fingers for a second before turning to look at Babe.

“I guess,” Babe responds, letting his head fall back against the back of the booth, the angle now blocking out most of Bill’s face. He really does like Gene, of course, but he and Bill have never really done this kind of thing before. They bullshit and joke around, poke fun and stuff, but this is new, being serious. It’s kind of throwing Babe for a loop. “I mean, yeah.” 

“Babe.” Bill says it pointedly, and his entire face reads, _Don’t give me this shit_. 

“What?” he asks, giving Bill this shit anyway. Besides, it’s not like Bill doesn’t already know the truth. Bill can read him like a book.

“ _Babe_ ,” Bill insists. 

“ _What?_ ” 

They have a silent staring contest, and when Bill blinks first, he says, “When do I get to meet the guy? Let him kiss the ring an’ all that.” 

And there it is—the joking that Babe’s used to, only this time around, Babe doesn’t know how to respond. It sort of puts his heart in his throat like anxiety. He doesn’t like it.

But Bill’s still Bill even if Babe might not still be Babe anymore. 

“Yeah, yeah. Get outta here,” Babe finally tells him.

“Alright,” Bill says lightly, and Babe thinks he’s going to let it drop, just let Babe do his thing, but then he says, “So I’ll quit the joking, but I _do_ wanna meet the guy.”

“Ah, fuck,” Babe says. He wants to tell Bill that he doesn’t need to always look out for Babe, but he doesn’t bother because he’d do the same if the shoe was on the other foot. So instead, he says, “Fine. I’ll invite him over this week. But just you, alright?”

“Yeah, of course,” Bill says, smiling brightly. And then, as if an afterthought, he adds, “And Toye too. And Luz.”

Babe responds sarcastically, “Might as well invite Lieb and Web while we’re at it.”

“Might as well,” Bill agrees, and Babe _knows_ Bill knew that was a joke, but also knows Bill’s going to do it anyway. “Make it a real shindig to welcome your boy, Gene.”

Babe means to lean over and give Bill a dead arm, but he likes the sound of that— _your boy_ —and his punch turns out to be nothing more than a halfhearted, closed-fist shove. 

_Your boy_ , Babe thinks. _Your boy, Gene_. 

 

Seeing as Bill more or less demanded it, Babe invites Gene over later in the week for pizza and a movie, and then nearly paces a hole through the rug in his bedroom when Gene texts back, _Sounds good_. It’s probably a mistake, introducing Gene to his friends this early, he thinks. Bill’s an asshole. Liebgott’s worse.

When the time gets closer and Gene texts saying he’s on his way, Babe heads into the living room and collapses on the couch between Bill and Toye. Luz isn’t far, sitting on the kitchen counter, feet swinging and the backs of his heels banging the cabinets.

“Think about it like this,” Luz says. “If it goes south, at least he gets free food outta the deal.”

“That helps approximately zero percent, Luz,” Babe tells him, and Toye snorts.

“You gotta forgive him,” Toye says. “George here never learned how to be useful.”

Luz lets his head fall back against the top cabinets with a thud and says, “Hey, I was useful that time Walter Gordon gave you a smoke and then tried to charge you five bucks for a light.” 

Toye opens his mouth to snark back, only then their doorbell rings, and all three of them swivel their heads to look at Babe. Babe ignores them and starts to stand, but then Bill pushes him back into the couch with one hand to Babe’s chest, which he uses to leverage himself up from the couch.

“Someone’s at the door,” Bill says lightly. “Lemme go see who it is.”

And what can Babe do? It’s like watching a car crash, and he’d know.

Bill opens the door, and from the living room, Babe hears Gene say, “Hey, I’m… Ah. Gene. I’m here for Babe.”

“Thought you’d be taller,” Bill responds, and then before Gene can respond, he’s letting out a bark of laughter and saying, “C’mon, we’ve Babe hostage inside.”

Babe stands up then, and when he sees Bill walking Gene in with an arm around Gene’s shoulders, Babe says, “Alright, already. Let the guy breathe.”

“What?” Bill asks innocently. “We’re friends, Gene and I.” He still releases Gene, anyway, and then tactfully ducks out of the hallway and into the kitchen, calling Toye with him and saying something about beers.

“Hi,” Gene says to Babe when they’re as alone as they’re getting.

“Hey,” Babe says back. He waves a hand behind himself. “Sorry about that.”

“Nah, it’s nothing,” Gene says, smiling just wide enough for Babe. “They gonna burn me at the stake if I kiss you?”

“Hah, no,” Babe says, and then he takes a step forward into Gene’s space, presses their mouths together himself. He’s not one for wasting time, when it comes to kissing Gene.

It’s not much of a kiss, nothing scandalous and no tongues, and thank god for that, too, because then the door bangs open and Liebgott’s calling out, “Fuck, sorry. Harvard over here can’t read a clock.”

“Oh, so it’s my fault we’re late, then,” Web says, followed by the sound of the door closing. Gene and Babe are just down the hall in the now empty living room, but they can still hear everything, the bickering in the entryway and the sound of the fridge opening in the kitchen.

“Well, I sure as shit wasn’t the one watching _Jaws of the Deep_ ,” Lieb responds, and that’s when Babe turns to Gene.

“Oh please, everyone loves _Shark Week_ ,” Web says, and in the living room, Gene raises his eyebrows.

“It’s about to get real,” Babe warns him.

And Gene replies, “That’s how I like it best, anyway.”

So they order pizza, and Babe introduces them all around, sits through some embarrassing stories, tells Gene that everything they say is a lie. His boys make him sweat a little, re-telling in full detail the night Babe lost drunken strip darts to a fully dressed Buck Compton— _Sharp objects and no pants… We saved him; you’re welcome—_ but for the most part everything else is pretty low-key and typical for them. Bill talks a lot about Fran and practically Spanish Inquisitions Gene into answering questions about himself. Luz makes his fair share of sexual innuendos, imitates Babe complaining about the cold, and Web gets in a bit of a debate with Gene over something to do with the lymphatic system. Lieb alternates between smoking a cigarette with his head halfway out the kitchen window, eating Web’s leftover pizza crusts, and playing bloody knuckles with Toye using a quarter that Toye dug out from between the couch cushions. 

Again: low-key. Typical.

But Babe notices Web watching Lieb out of the corner of his eye throughout most of dinner, and isn't surprised when Web finally speaks up. “You're going to bust your hand doing that, and then you won't be able to play guitar.”

“Don't worry,” Lieb responds distractedly, flicking the coin, “I’ll still have one hand left for you.”

Web rolls his eyes and says to whoever’s listening, “This is what I get for caring.”

Gene shoots Babe a look that Babe can't really decipher, and so Babe just quirks him a small smile back. That must be the right response, because then Gene reaches out and grabs ahold of Babe’s hand underneath the table, his thumb like a windshield wiper over Babe’s skin. A mistake, maybe: Luz is watching them with a grin on his face, his chin in his palm as he chews on a slice of pizza. His head bobbles wildly in his hand, and he points between Babe and Gene with a half-eaten slice.

“Where’d you two crazy kids meet, anyway?” He asks.

“At the hospital,” Gene answers, and Luz’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. Babe knows what he's thinking. Now that Luz is thinking it, Babe’s thinking it, too. Thinking about Julian. Gene must realize that he misspoke, because he adds to explain, “Babe was there helpin’ with the Standardized Patient Program, and I was one of the medical students diagnosin’ him.”

“I see,” Luz says with a nod. “Very _Love in the Time of Cholera_.”

Web winces. “Not really,” he says, and Luz exchanges eyerolls with Toye.

“Lust at first sight, huh?” Lieb asks. He’s placing his knuckles on the countertop. “Quite the number you did on his neck, there. Web and I gave it an eight out of ten.”

“Oh my god,” Babe says, and he drops his head into his free hand, heat spreading over his face and crawling up the back of his neck. Surprisingly, though, Gene just laughs. Babe peaks up at him through squinted eyes, and Gene’s smiling, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he looks right back at Babe.

“Somethin’ like that,” Gene says, and then he admits to Babe, “I was kickin’ myself for not askin’ you out that first time. Got nervous, I guess.”

“For real?” Babe asks, skeptical. He’s never made anyone nervous before. Just the idea is ridiculous. 

“Yeah, I dunno,” Gene says. Out of everything tonight, this is what turns him red. “You’re funny. It was, ah… A little intimidating.”

“Me?” Babe asks incredulously. He gives Gene a light shove and then pulls him right back over. “You’re like a freaking _genius_ , how’s _that_ for intimidating?”

“Jesus,” Toye says. Babe realizes now they’re all still watching him and Gene. “If this is what I have to look forward to, I’m gonna stay single forever.”

“Hear, hear,” Luz says, raising his beer bottle.

Liebgott then kindly says, “The real reason you’ll be single is because you’re a fucking curmudgeon, Toye,” which gets a bark of laughter out of Toye in return.

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re a fucking delight,” he says.

Luz asks, “Who the hell says _curmudgeon_ these days, anyway?” and then Web defends, “ _Curmudgeon_ ’s a perfectly acceptable word.”

“You’re all terrible,” Bill tells them, shaking his head, and then looks at Babe and Gene. “You two especially. Unbearable.”

“Thank you,” Gene says politely, and it startles a laugh out of Bill and Babe alike.

Later, once the boys have gone home and it’s just the three of them left, Babe leaves the table to hit the head. He’s been dreading it all night, whatever Bill’s got planned to say, but he might as well let Bill get it over with and out of his system. Only, he guesses that he maybe doesn’t waste enough time loitering in the hallway and checking his phone for text messages, because on the way back, he overhears Bill just starting in on the threats.

“Listen,” Bill says, and Babe can hear the attitude in his voice. When Babe leans around the corner just an inch, he can see Bill pointing a finger at Gene. “You hurt a hair on his head? I'll come to your house and fuck up your face.”

“Ah...” Gene says, clearly at a loss for words. The night was going pretty well, prior. “I s’pose it's best that I don't do that, then.” He clears his throat and then adds, “I wasn't plannin’ on it before this talk, either.”

“Good,” Bill says. Then again, “ _Good_. Because Babe’s like a brother to me, and he doesn't need any more shit, especially not from you.”

And that—Babe doesn't get what that means, _especially not from you_ , and he expects Gene to not know, either. He expects Gene to be just as confused, but he’s not, not judging by the way he looks, or the way he responds.

“I know,” Gene says. “I wouldn't.”

“Gene.”

“Bill, I know,” Gene repeats again, tone serious, and Babe wants to know what the fuck they know. How can Babe not, when it's him they're talking about?

“Yeah, yeah,” Bill says. He lets out a rush of breath, and when he does, the entire atmosphere of the room changes. “Hey, what’d’ya know about treating gonorrhea? Nah, just fuckin’ with you.”

Babe decides to interrupt then, and walks in the room.

 

Gene stays over at their apartment for a while, past the end of the late night Seinfeld reruns and long past the time Bill politely excuses himself by saying, “Going to FaceTime Frannie… Nothing I wouldn’t do, ya hear?”

“Yeah, go fuck yourself,” Babe says, a South Philly _I love you, too_ , and then Bill’s gone. He waits until Bill’s door closes before asking Gene, “Alright, be honest.”

“What?” Gene asks. He shifts on the couch so he’s facing Babe more.

“What’d’ya mean, _what_? How it go? How painful was it?”

“Oh,” Gene says, like maybe because Babe was right next to him the entire night, Babe wouldn’t need to know Gene’s thoughts. “They’re nice, I like them. You fit right in.”

“Okay, cool,” Babe says. “If you’re lying to me, I don’t want to know.”

Gene smiles and nods, and then says, “Hey, so when am I getting a tour of the place?”

“A tour?” Babe asks. He waves his hands around. “This is sort of it, except for my— _oh_.”

“Yeah?” Gene asks. There’s laughter in his voice.

“So demanding,” Babe says, but he still gets up from the couch and takes Gene back to his room, still presses Gene up against his closed door and kisses him, still rucks Gene’s shirt up and undoes his belt, and still helps Gene shove his pants down over his hips.

Gene may be demanding, but Babe still sucks him off in his bedroom.

Afterwards—after Gene gets Babe off and Babe struggles to keep quiet, and after they’ve cleaned up and collapsed back on Babe’s bed, on top of the sheets—Babe thinks about how he doesn’t really want Gene to leave. He won’t say anything because it’s way too early into their thing, but he kind of just wishes Gene would stay the night. It’s impractical, besides, seeing as Gene didn’t bring anything with him, but Babe can’t help wanting what he wants.

He’s just glad Gene and Bill got along. Might’ve been a deal-breaker, if they hadn’t.

“Sorry about the verbal kneecapping, by the way,” Babe says. He doesn't want to look at Gene, so instead he mashes his face into the ball of Gene’s shoulder. 

“Hm?” Gene asks.

“With Bill, in the kitchen.”

“Oh,” Gene says. “Should've known you’d hear that.” He turns around in Babe’s grip so that they're facing one another, and then he places a chaste, open-mouthed kiss on the corner of Babe’s mouth. “He just cares about you, is all.”

“Overprotective is what he is,” Babe complains without really meaning it, and runs his fingers through Gene’s short hair. He likes being like this, close enough that they're almost one person.

“Family’s s’posed to be that way,” Gene says, and it's true. It's gotta be true. 

Babe thinks of Julian, crushed underneath the wreck, his blood on the snow. Babe looks back on that all the time: the snow, and how it seeped through all the clothing he was wearing. How he had reached a hand out to Julian, his knees cold and wet, and kept reaching and reaching as if he could close that distance, as if Babe being able to touch him would've at all changed what happened next. 

Babe would've given anything to switch places with Julian in that moment. But that’s family, he guesses. Overprotective.

“I used to be more…” Babe says, and then he trails off trying to find the right word. What did Babe used to be? 

“More what?” Gene asks.

“I dunno. Just more. If you met me a few months ago, I’d have talked your ear off.”

Gene huffs out a laugh, “You already talk my ear off.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Babe tells him. “But if you could get by without ever saying a word, you’d be happy.”

Gene smiles, just the tiniest, sincerest bit, and says, “Who’s to say I'm not already?”

He kisses Babe, and Babe thinks he could fall in love.

 

The next morning, with Bill heading to class and nothing but morning talk shows on tv, Babe goes stir-crazy and shoves the school re-enrollment forms into a backpack, and heads to Currahee. 

It’s pretty crowded when he gets there, not all the seats taken, but all the tables filled, the line ever-present with people darting to work. Babe looks around and it’s the same barista from last time, the one whose girlfriend knows Fran. Harry, he thinks. Babe hops in line and orders a coffee from him, but they don’t chat; Bill’s the one who sort of knows him, not Babe.

Only once Babe has his coffee, he stands there looking around for a minute before realizing there’s really nowhere to sit, unless he wants to be the asshole who makes someone share a table. So he’s just going to leave, maybe go home or to the library or something when someone waves and gets his attention.

It’s Dick, the redheaded not-barista. Lew’s friend. Babe waves back to be polite. Dick points to the open seat across from him in question, and Babe shrugs, nods.

“Thanks,” he says, sliding into the free chair. “I’m Babe, by the way.”

“Dick,” Dick says. He’s reading a paper copy of the newspaper. Babe doesn’t know anyone who does that besides his parents.

Babe just smiles and lets their conversation die, and opens his bag for the school paperwork. Taking it out and setting it on the table, Babe looks over the first page. Okay. He can do this.

Only he can’t, because someone was eating a muffin here before him, and left most of the muffin behind. Babe picks up the paperwork and brushes crumbs off of the table before setting the paperwork back down again. Right, and here he goes. Babe picks up his pen.

Over by the register, someone laughs. Babe turns to look, and it’s the barista laughing, just over whatever the customer had said. Babe tries to ignore it and turns back to his paperwork. Dick turns the page of the newspaper, folds it crisply so that it takes up less room, and keeps reading. He takes a sip of his coffee, and Babe wonders what he’s drinking. Dick doesn’t really seem the sugary type, doesn’t seem like he’d like whipped cream on his drinks. Maybe an americano. Maybe just black coffee.

A half hour goes by of Babe sitting at the table, and he’s finding it practically impossible to focus on his paperwork, even just the initial letter that comes with the packet. It’s like he can’t think straight, too much of everything else calling for his attention.

Babe looks around the coffee shop, just to see who’s there, and that’s when he sees Lew walking over from the back. Lew looks like he hasn’t shaved in a day, looks the kind of tired that Babe always feels. He’s wearing jeans and a green utility jacket, rumpled and underdressed for the cold.

“Well, if it isn't my two favorite redheads,” Lew says, but Dick doesn't look up from his newspaper. Babe just smiles at him the way he’d smile at a crazy person, in a detached way meant to calm and placate. He doesn’t even know the guy, not really.

“Don't let the flattery fool you,” Dick says to Babe, still ignoring Lew in favor of his article. “He’d ditch the both of us for Rita Hayworth in a heartbeat if he had the chance, and she’s not even a true redhead.”

“Hey, she was the top pin-up for soldiers in World War II,” Lew defends. “Don't knock it.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dick says, and the corner of his mouth curls up just the slightest in a smile as he finally looks up at Lew. “You’re here early.”

Lew drags a chair over loudly and sits down with them. His knees bump into Babe’s underneath the table, just because there’s no room. He says, “Heard from Harry you were out with a younger model.”

“Oh,” Babe says, startled. “We’re not—I mean, this isn’t—”

Lew laughs. It changes his whole face. Makes him look younger and less tired.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Lew says. “It’s a joke.”

“Right,” Babe says, still wary, and he looks to Dick, just for a second, just to gauge his reaction. Dick looks back at Babe and rolls his eyes, before returning to his newspaper.

“You drinking that?” Lew asks Dick, and pulls out a flask from his pocket. He pours some out into the half-finished cup of coffee in front of Dick and then offers the flask out to Babe.

“I _was_ ,” Dick says, and Babe looks at his watch. It’s a few minutes to nine.

He pushes his coffee cup forward, anyway.

“Thanks,” Babe asks as Lew tips the flask into Babe’s drink.

“So what’s your deal, anyway?” Lew asks him. “You’re in here all the time, now.”

Babe shrugs. “Got nothing better to do,” he says, surprisingly honest, and feels relieved when Lew doesn’t follow that line of thought.

“I’d offer you a job,” Lew starts—

“—but I already work the morning shift for free,” Dick finishes deadpan, and looks pointedly at Lew.

“I don’t want to pay you,” Lew says. “That’d make it weird.”

“Hate to break it to you, Lew: it’s already weird,” Dick says, folding up his newspaper, and Babe can’t help but agree with. Dick looks at his watch. “Anyway, I’ve got to get to work. My _actual_ work. See you for dinner?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Lew agrees.

“Actually, I was talking to Babe,” Dick says. “Younger model and all.”

Lew balls up a napkin and throws it at him, and Dick ducks out of the way, laughing. 

“Nice meeting you officially, Babe,” he says, and he’s out the door before Babe can even return the sentiment.

Lew watches after him and says nonsensically, “Never inherit a coffee shop, kid. It’s only downhill from there.”

And Babe doesn’t know anyone who owns a coffee shop other than Lew, so he says, “Don’t put me in your will, then.”

Lew lets out a bark of laughter, and even though Dick is gone, he stays where he is, lounging in his chair and drinking his Irish coffee. Babe tries to return to his paperwork, but he gets nothing done.

 

Babe texts Gene sometime after he’s given up on paperwork, after Lew’s gotten him kind of buzzed still well before lunchtime. He asks Gene what he’s up to, and then hopes he's not stuck in the library all day. Babe wants to see Gene, hopes maybe Gene wants to see him, too.

 _Just home studying_ , Gene sends. _You?_

 _Trying to do paperwork for school_ , Babe responds, and then because he's had more than a couple of splashes of Lew’s whiskey, he feels brave enough to ask, _Want company?_

 _If you’ll actually let me get some studying done, come on over,_ Gene writes back, and that about settles it for Babe. He calls an uber from where he is, seated in Currahee Coffee, and looks at Lew.

“Well,” Babe tells him. “It's been fun.”

“Has it?” Lew asks. He sounds surprised.

Babe rolls his eyes and says, “Fuck off,” unsure if Lew’s surprise is genuine or not. Lew laughs either way, so that's gotta be a good sign.

At Gene’s, Babe is let in by his roommate, one of the students that Babe had seen before but who he doesn't really remember. 

“Hey, you must be Edward,” the roommate says, and then he gestures to himself. “Ralph. Spina. Whatever.”

“Cool,” Babe says. “Actually, though—call me Babe.”

“Babe, sure,” Spina says, and when Babe steps into the apartment, Spina locks the door behind him. “Gene’s studying. He's at the kitchen table.”

“Cool,” Babe says again, and Spina leads him into the apartment before disappearing into his bedroom with a wave.

Babe wanders into the living room, and with the open floor plan, Babe can see Gene at the kitchen table, hunched over his books with a pen in hand. He's chewing his lip a little, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration, and Babe wants to walk up behind him and kiss his neck, maybe let his arms wrap around the front of Gene’s chest, but he doesn't. Gene’s studying, and just because Babe doesn't need to doesn't mean he should be a dick about it.

“Hey, Gene,” he says softly, trying not to startle him, and Gene hums back at him, a half-hearted _yeah_ that shows he's probably not paying attention and doesn’t even realize that Babe’s there. Babe thinks about calling him again, but he doesn't do that, either.

Instead, Babe collapses on the leather couch and rests his head back against the cushions. He watches Gene through half-lidded eyes.

 _He's really focused_ , Babe thinks, and then the whiskey gets the better of him, and he falls asleep.

He dreams that he and Gene are walking down Broad Street together, and it's the kind of hot where Babe sweats more and more with each step, although maybe that's also because of the winter parka he’s wearing. Gene planned better; Gene’s wearing a white t-shirt and he looks tanned, happy. Babe wants to reach out and touch the veins in Gene’s forearms.

 _It usually gets hot in Philly,_ Babe tells him as they pass the Wells Fargo Center, _but this is somethin’ else._

 _That’s the bayou for you,_ Gene says nonsensically, and Babe wipes sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his coat. _Watch your head._

 _What?_ Babe asks, looking over, and as he does, he whacks his head on a low hanging tree branch. 

_I told you,_ Gene says, smiling. _It's a tupelo tree. Don't usually have such low branches, though, ‘cause water level varies so much._

 _What?_ Babe asks again, and he looks around. They're in Philly, but it's all overgrown, trees breaking up the sidewalk with their roots and vines climbing the sides of buildings. The asphalt road shimmers and moves like water. Broad Street looks like a swamp.

 _I’m glad you came to visit,_ Gene says, sliding a cool hand into Babe’s. _See that gator?_ He points but all Babe can see are the tops of cars, the rest of their bodies covered by water.

 _Where is it?_ Babe asks, and Gene reaches up, runs his hands through Babe’s hair.

 _Hey_ , Gene says softly.

Babe snaps awake.

“Hey,” Gene says softly. He's standing over Babe with his fingers combing through Babe’s hair. “How long you been here for?”

“Um,” Babe says. He blinks rapidly to shake off the sleep as he glances at his watch. “Not long. Half hour.”

“Sorry,” Gene says, and then he braces one hand on the couch next to Babe’s head and leans down to kiss him. Babe brackets his hands on either side of Gene’s waist and then leaves them there, even as Gene pulls back from the kiss. “Takin’ a break now”

“Okay,” Babe says, and he squints up at Gene, rubs his thumb along Gene’s covered hipbone. “I just had the weirdest dream. We were in the bayou, but it was still Philly, somehow? I was wearing a parka.”

“Ah, definitely not the bayou, then,” Gene says, and then he does something that Babe doesn’t really see coming: he kneels on the couch, one leg on either side of Babe’s lap. “Want to order lunch?”

“Actually,” Babe says. “Looks like my order’s already here.”

“Looks like,” Gene agrees, and Babe cranes his neck up to kiss Gene again, and Gene lets him, pressing in closer so it's easier. Babe wastes little time in undoing Gene’s belt, but as he starts in on the button of Gene’s pants, the fridge opens loudly. Both Gene and Babe startle and break away from the kiss, and look over the breakfast bar into the kitchen. The fridge closes again with just as much noise, and then there's Spina, paying them little attention as he opens a blue Gatorade.

“Nothing I’ve never seen before,” Spina says on his way back to his room. “The only virgin I know is the Virgin Mary.”

Gene turns red and scratches the bridge of his nose. “Maybe we should, ah…”

“Yeah,” Babe agrees, and laughter bubbles out of him. “We probably should.”

He follows Gene back to his bedroom and they forget about lunch.

 

_HISTORY OF ILLNESS_

_You are a seventeen-year-old guy. You’ve had trouble with coughing and not being able to run very far for a couple of years. Your gym teacher is always telling you to get moving, but when you do, it’s hard to breathe. You had had asthma when you were a kid but haven't had any problems for several years, and now you're really bummed thinking that it might be back, because you had been thinking of maybe trying to join the Paratroopers and you heard you can’t join up if you have asthma. You noticed that it seems like going out in the cold makes your chest feel tight, and last week you were over at a friend’s house where they have multiple cats, and you couldn’t stop wheezing._

Jesus, Babe thinks as he sits through the exams. Don’t go running, don’t go out in the cold, don’t hang out with cats. Problem solved, not that any of the fake doctors seem to find it half as easy. Give Babe the job.

Babe knows Gene is busy with another class by the time he gets out of Standardized Patienting, so instead he just picks up two hoagies—one for now and one to put in the fridge for later—and heads home. Bill won't be there, and Babe thinks maybe he’ll marathon shitty television in peace, or get off thinking about Gene. Maybe he’ll take a nap. An empty apartment means the world is his oyster, really.

Babe shoulders his door open and tosses his backpack down just inside the entryway. The tv is already on, and Babe wonders if that means Bill just forgot to shut it off, or if one of the guys is crashing. 

Turning the corner, he gets his answer: Luz is sprawled out on the couch, a bio textbook open but facedown on his chest as he watches a daytime soap.

“What’re you watching?” Babe asks. He’s hopping around on one foot, trying to undo his boot laces.

“Like sands of an hourglass,” Luz says, speaking along with the opening credits, “so are the days of ours lives.” Babe just stares at him like he's a lunatic, so Luz adds, “ _Days of our Lives_ , one of the old ones. I'm mostly just killing time ‘til class and didn't want to walk all the way back to mine. _Salut_!”

He holds his water glass out in a mock cheers, and Babe rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

Shucking his winter coat and tossing it haphazardly into the hall closet, Babe heads into the kitchen for something to drink. He grabs a cup from the cabinet, skirting around the chipped _Ghostbusters_ mug that Julian always liked, and fills it at the tap. 

“You came at a good time,” Luz calls out to him. “Marie’s about to find out she's been dating her brother.”

“What the fuck,” Babe says, and he didn't think it was loud enough for Luz to hear, except then Luz hollers back.

“I kid you not.”

Babe shakes his head in disbelief and grabs a couple of paper towels to stand in for napkins. The memory, when it hits him, comes out of nowhere: Julian splitting hoagies with Babe, splitting bags of Doritos, splitting boxes of mac and a six pack, sitting in front of the tv. They split everything. There was nothing Julian had that Babe didn't, or the other way around. And Bill too, but Julian’s different than Bill; Bill’s his fucking brother and Babe would do anything for him, but they got into all sorts of shit together growing up, and still do. Julian was different. Julian was a good egg, younger than even Babe, without a bad thought to him. Babe was supposed to look out for him.

He fucking—he just fucking _misses_ Julian. It's not fair.

Swallowing hard, Babe shouts over, “Hey, d’you want a hoagie? I got two.”

“What kind?”

“Italian and a roast beef.”

“Yeah, hit me with the Italian,” Luz says, “and hurry up! Commercial’s over.”

So Babe grabs the hoagies and the paper towels and his water, and heads into the living room. He passes the wrapped hoagies over and says, “I dunno which is which.”

“I got it,” Luz says. He starts unwrapping them almost right away.

“Alright.” Babe grabs an open seat on the couch and looks up at the tv. “So what's happening?”

“A while ago, Marie started dating Mark,” Luz says through a full mouth, “but then her parents saw him and were like, hey, he kinda looks like our son Tommy, who died in Korea. So now Marie’s about to have the rudest wake up call of her life.”

“What _is_ this dumb show?” Babe asks in disbelief. “How does she not recognize her own brother?”

“Hey, watch it,” Luz says. “This is television genius. And besides, he was a disfigured, amnesiac POW who saved a Soviet soldier and was rewarded for it with face-altering reconstructive surgery. Show some respect.”

“Yeah,” Babe deadpans. “Respect. Right.”

Luz laughs. “So hey, how’s your lover man doing?”

“Oh, god,” Babe groans, not liking where this is headed. “ _Gene_ is fine.”

“Just fine, huh? Y’know, I got a copy of the _Kamasutra_ you could—”

Babe grabs a couch cushion and chucks it at Luz’s head.

“Alright! Alright!” Luz laughs. “No, for real though, you should bring him out to Toccoa sometime. Bull’s coming home for winter break, and we’re gonna show him a good night when he does. Gene should come.”

Babe thinks about it, thinks about sliding into the back booth with Gene, sitting pressed together in such a tight space, shoulder to knee. He thinks about introducing Gene to the bar regulars, like Lip, and about making up a backstory for Lip’s spooky boyfriend. He thinks about Gene tasting like beer, and about the two of them maybe being dumb enough and drunk enough to step into one bathroom stall and close the door behind them, laughing into each other’s mouths.

“Or not,” Luz says lightly, and that's when Babe realizes he hasn't said anything.

“No, yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I'll ask.”

 

A few days later, Bill drags him out to Christmas Village in Center City, complaining that he needs a good gift for Fran. They go every year, always the three of them, but sometimes the others go, too, Muck and Penkala when they’re bored, Web when he and Lieb are fighting. This is the first time Bill and Babe have ever gone just the two of them, really. When they were kids, both their families always came with, too.

“It's impossible,” Bill says. He’s been going on for the better part of five minutes, complaining. Dating Fran for years now, and he’s taking the whole gift thing very seriously. “Who knows what women want? It's a mystery.”

“Beats me,” Babe agrees. He's not stressing it because he doesn’t even know if he and Gene are swapping gifts. Probably not. Mostly Babe's just there for the snacks.

“How was the pretzel, anyway?” Bill asks, reading his mind. It's crowded and Bill stays half a step behind Babe as they cut through the mass of people. When Babe turns, the first thing he sees is Bill’s breath, hanging in the air.

“Pretty good,” Babe says. “Shoulda gotten more cheese, though.”

“Next year,” Bill says. He stops at a glassblower’s booth. “What about a vase?” he asks.

“For Fran?” Babe asks. “That’s a great symbol of your love for her.”

“Ah, fuck, you’re right,” Bill says. “Hey, what about a necklace?” He waves Babe over to one of the next stands, and the two of them look over all the jewelry that’s laid out, turquoise and amethyst and whatever that green one is. They’re nice, Babe thinks. He doesn’t know anything about jewelry, but they’re nice, and Fran can probably get at least one pity-wear out of it if she hates it. Then all she needs to do is have sex with Bill, wait a week, and by then he’ll have forgotten what thing even looked like, or that he even bought it in the first place.

Bill’s deep in debate with the female employee, talking _this one_ or _that one_ , and _how much,_ and _what do you think_ , and so Babe wanders down a booth or two, just to see what’s there. There’s an Irish sweater stand that Babe’s grandma would appreciate, and a table selling coasters with vintage pictures of New York and Philly on them. Not really anything Babe’s interested in, until he comes to a knick-knack stand that has all sorts of weird collectables: pens, coins, old photographs, stethoscopes. 

There’s a knobby bit of a bone-looking thing on the table with a pen standing right down the center. Babe hunches over and looks at it without touching, and even he knows what it is. It’s a vertebra, or supposed to be one, anyway, and it’s been turned into a pen holder. One of the weirder things Babe has ever seen, but he asks the merchant how much it is, anyway. He wonders if Gene’s tired of getting medical-related gifts. Babe thinks this one’s kind of funny, but maybe Gene won’t. Or maybe he will.

Babe buys it anyway.

“Hey,” Bill says, sneaking up on him. 

Babe stuffs the gift into his coat pocket and turns around. He asks, “What’s up? Get anything?”

“Yeah, a necklace,” Bill says, and he pulls it out of the bag to show Babe. It’s simple, just a pendant on a chain, but it makes Babe think about when Julian bought his sister a bracelet, and she loved it so much that she wore it every day. She still wears it, if the funeral was any indication. Bill’s asking the wrong guy for jewelry advice, but Bill’s only got Babe to ask.

“It’s nice,” Babe says.

“You fuckin’ hate it.”

“I don’t hate it,” Babe defends. “What do I know about jewelry?”

“I hate it,” Bill admits. The tip of his nose is bright red from the cold. “But the girl over there swore Frannie’d love it, so.” 

“So,” Babe agrees.

They wander the rest of the market, elbowing past people and buying some hot chocolate. Bill buys a scarf for Frannie, too, and tells Babe about a lecture he sat in on. Babe buys an Eagles tree ornament carved from wood that he plans to tack up to the wall, since they don’t have a tree.

“Hey, remember when—” Bill starts with a laugh, but then he cuts himself off and clears his throat. He blows into his hands for warmth, and for something to do.

“When what?” Babe asks. He’s trying not to be immediately mad. It’s not that he knows what Bill was going to say, but it’s that he knows why Bill stopped. Obviously they were here last year.

“Nah, nothing,” Bill insists, and cranes his neck to look at a vendor on the other side of the pathway.

“You can just say it, you know,” Babe snaps. He shouldn’t, but he does. Maybe Babe doesn’t want to talk about it so much, but if Bill does, he will. If Bill does, Babe _has_ to. Babe fucked up with Julian, but there’s still Bill. “It’s not like I haven’t been thinkin’ about him since we got here.”

Bill doesn’t apologize, which Babe likes, and says, “I was just thinkin’ about when he bought a Belgian waffle with nutella and all that, and somehow got the waffle—” 

He gestures to the center of his chest with one hand splayed wide, and of course Babe remembers that. It was the funniest thing at the time, how they turned away for two seconds and when they looked back, Julian was picking bits of nutella and banana off his shirt, most of the waffle on the ground. Babe had watched through creased eyes, laughing as Julian tried to wipe the remaining nutella away, only to end up smearing it worse.

 _Really brings new meaning to spreading joy this holiday season_ , Julian said with a goofy smile, and even though Babe was hunched over laughing himself, he still managed to hold Bill up, too.

Standing there in the market, weeks out from Julian, Babe feels both sides of his mouth start to curl up until he smiling. He lets out a laugh that maybe sounds more like a scoff or a snort, but Bill knows.

“You’re alright,” Bill says, a statement and not a question, and he tosses an arm around Babe’s shoulder.

 

He goes out with Gene again that week, more holiday stuff that Babe usually doesn't care about but that he finds he likes when it means he gets to hold Gene’s hand.

“Have you been before?” Babe asks Gene as they walk to Franklin Square. The Electrical Spectacle brings a lot of people out to see the lights, so he and Gene stay close.

“No,” Gene says. “Meant to, but never got around to it.”

“I sort of figured you only holed up in the library,” Babe admits, “so I googled some facts before we came out. Now I can wow you with my knowledge.”

“Yeah? Good luck, I guess,” Gene jokes, and he smiles at Babe. 

“More than fifty thousand lights,” Babe rattles off. “Twelve-foot-tall kite. Shows every thirty.”

“Wow, very impressive,” Gene says evenly, and Babe tosses his head back and laughs.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Hey, let's get some cider or something before it starts.”

Babe walks them over to the food tents, and Gene follows with a hand on the small of Babe’s back, even though he’s not the one leading. Babe buys them two ciders, and Gene gets them a square of fudge and fresh donut, and they head back out towards the lights, same as before, Gene reaching out to touch Babe.

They stand around the fountain like everyone else, and make quick work of the donut. The cider is almost too hot to drink, despite how cold it is outside, and Gene tells him about the first time he saw snow, when he was seventeen. Babe can't ever remember _not_ having seen snow, and it serves to remind him just how different they are.

When the show starts, everyone around them falls quiet, in awe of the lights flickering and dancing in time with the music playing over loudspeakers. After a few minutes, once the initial surprise wears off, the two of them start wandering, down the path past the fountain and the food tents and the rows of park benches, lights everywhere.

“Y’know, it's funny,” Gene says. “It's jus’ lights but it makes me feel like I'm on a different planet.”

“What’d’ya mean?” Babe asks. He reaches one hand over to snag a piece of fudge from the paper bag Gene’s holding.

“Back home, we’re not much into Christmas, not like this,” Gene tells him. He offers Babe the bag for even more fudge, but Babe shakes his head and they keep walking idly through the park, looking at the lights. “We do All Saints—day after Thanksgiving—and New Year’s is a big deal. But Christmas mostly just meant midnight mass and a big dinner. Maybe some Roman Candy.”

“Some what?”

“Roman Candy,” Gene says. “Louisiana taffy. You can't find it out here, but it's my favorite. The strawberry reminds me of home because my mamere was always givin’ us some.”

“Oh,” Babe says. “Jeez. My family’s all Irish Catholics, so we go all out. Christmas is, like… _it_.”

“Big family thing?” Gene asks. “All sorts of Heffrons running about?”

Babe tilts his head to the side a little, meaning _yeah_ , and then he takes a sip of his cider so that he doesn't have to talk right away. It's hot and it burns going down his throat. The last thing he wants to do is talk about Julian, but at the same time, like always, the only thing he wants to do is talk about Julian. 

It's just easier with Gene than it is with Bill, because Gene never knew him.

He says, “Yeah, the Heffrons and the Guarneres and the Julians—his name’s, uh,” Babe trips over the verb tense, “was John. John Julian. We all lived in the same stretch of row houses, the only families with kids. We’d do everything together, anything you could get in trouble for: putting hunks of ice in the middle of snowballs, illegal fireworks, throwing things at cars. Bill and I would, anyway; Julian was the straight-laced one.”

Gene listens intently, probably knowing what it means that Babe’s talking about him, but not feeling the need to follow up with questions to prove it. Instead, Gene shares a story of his own, and Babe finds he likes that better. 

“I know all about firecrackers,” Gene tells him. “My friend Merriell once—well, we do Christmas bonfires on the levees, that's one thing we do, and and he set it off one year a full day early, messin’ around with firecrackers.”

“He get in trouble?” Babe asks, and watches as Gene pulls out the last bit of fudge before tossing the paper bag into a nearby trashcan.

“‘Course not,” Gene says. “But I did, and I had nothing to do with it.” Babe laughs.

“Hard to believe anyone thought you were a troublemaker,” Babe says, and he doesn't need to expand before Gene’s explaining.

“I wasn’t, really,” Gene says. “But I hung out with Merriell, who sure was one… My mama kept threatening me with military school every time we got in trouble.”

“Well, the threats worked then, I guess,” Babe says, because this Gene may occasionally have a sly side to him, but he’s also serious and studious and _good_. Gene takes his hand as they walk.

The circle the fountain another time or two, the lights flickering on and off in time with the music, their shoulders bumping as they walk. Eventually, they make it to the carousel, all lit up too, the kids laughing and screaming as it turns. They stop to watch, and Gene drops Babe’s hand to brace his arms on the wrought iron gate surrounding the whole thing. Babe watches him watch the carousel. He looks even better than when Babe first met him, because Babe knows him and likes him now, and with the lights all around them, and the two of them shivering despite their coats, Babe struggles for something to say. For the right thing to say.

“I'm glad you came to Philly instead of joinin’ the army,” Babe tells him. He's not sure if he means for it to sound like a joke or not, but it doesn't come out like one.

Gene turns to look at him, and he smiles. He says, “Me too,” and he leans in, kisses Babe with their fingertips touching atop the fence.

 

“You really need to knock it off with the hot dates,” Bill says. “You’re makin’ me look bad.”

“How am I making you look bad? I don’t even talk to Fran,” Babe says. They’re lounging in their apartment and Toye’s over, collapsed on the couch with them. Toye’s the only one with a textbook out and, if nothing else, he at least seems to be sort of reading it.

“He’s got an inferiority complex,” Toye says to Babe. “That’s why he surrounds himself with people better than him. Makes him feel like he belongs.”

“Yeah?” Bill asks. “Come ‘ere and say that to my face.”

Toye leans over from where he is, sharing one half of the sectional with Bill, and puts his face three inches from Bill’s. He says, “We’re better than you.”

“Fuck outta here,” Bill says, flicking Toye in the cheek, and Toye catches Bill’s hand in his, threatens to bend back his fingers before Bill snatches his hand back and smacks Toye’s away. Toye points a finger right in Bill’s face and then, without saying a word, sits back down.

Babe doesn’t pretend to really understand them. Toye’s kinda like Bill’s version of Julian. They met day one of college—both engineering majors—and just are the way they are.

“What are you studyin’ over there, anyway?” Babe asks. Toye holds up the cover and Babe sees _Art History: Volume 2_. “Really? Art history?” 

“Yeah, I fucking love it,” Toye says, rolling his eyes. “No. Had to fill a requirement.”

“I flipped through it,” Bill says. “Doesn’t seem that bad. It’s him and a hundred hot chicks learnin’ about how Frieda Kahlo lost a leg.”

“Yeah,” Toye agrees. “Nothing sexier than amputations.”

“Luckily, I got three legs,” Bill says with a shit-eating grin, and Babe groans.

“That was bad,” he says. “That wasn’t even good. It wasn’t even a little witty.”

“It was too witty, you dirty rat,” Bill insists, still smiling. Then he startles for a second and says, “Hey, did we tell you about our backpacking trip?”

“Not this shit,” Toye says, and Babe looks between the two of them.

“Still tryin’ to get him to agree,” Bill says, waving a hand as if to say, _Ignore him_. “MLK weekend. You, me, Toye, maybe Web and Liebgott. Luz. The Appalachian Trail. The great unknown—”

“This is a terrible idea,” Toye interjects.

“Just ‘cause you can’t keep up—”

“Can’t keep up? It’s all the shit I gotta carry!” Toye says, and then pleads his case to Babe. “Three day supply of dehydrated food, chocolate bars, Charms candy, powdered coffee, sugar, matches, compass, pocket knife, portable stove, dishes, energy bars, water bottles, a tent, a tarp, a sleeping bag, a bear cannister, two packs of smokes, whatever other bullshit Gonorrhea thinks up, and a pair of nasty skivvies!" 

“So what’s your point?” Bill asks, laughter in his voice.

“That stuff weighs as much as I do!” Toye argues. “And I’ve still got my extra socks, sleeping clothes, a raincoat, my base layers, and some bug spray.”

“You don’t need like half of that stuff,” Babe says. “Or maybe just don’t go hiking in the winter, I don’t know.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Toye says. “Talk to this idiot over here.”

“We’re going,” Bill promises, and Babe knows how he is when he gets like this, and knows that if nothing else, Bill’s dragging Toye up a fucking mountain over MLK weekend.

“You hanging in tonight?” Toye asks Babe suddenly. “I thought you said you were outta here at six.”

Babe looks at his phone for the time. “Oh, shit,” he says, and jumps up from the couch.

 

Babe knocks on on Gene’s door about five minutes before he told Gene he’d be there, but he figures a little early is still preferable to lateness considering he’s hanging out with some of Gene’s friends. It’s a small thing—just Gene’s little study group, staying after for dinner—but still, Babe wants to make a good impression.

“Hey,” Gene says with a smile when he opens the door. He’s in a t-shirt despite how cold it is outside, and Babe can hear laughter spilling out onto the sidewalk from inside.

“Hey. How’s studying?” Babe asks. He holds up a six-pack of beer.

“Just finished,” Gene says, and he steps back to let Babe inside.

“Babe!” Spina calls out when Babe’s past the doorway, and he walks over to take the beer from Babe’s cold fingers. “Lemme just take this off your hands.”

“Uh, sure,” Babe says laughing, and he lets the beer go with Spina and leans in to kiss Gene instead. “Hello.”

“C’mon,” Gene says, stepping back. “Let me introduce you to Renee.”

Babe figures who Renee is immediately, because there’s no one else in the apartment. Renee’s in a dress and tights at the kitchen table, a glass of red wine in front of her looking mostly untouched, and she's standing, trying to organize the books and paperwork spread out in front of her.

“Hey, Renee?” Gene says. “This is Edward.”

“Oh,” Renee says, turning around. Babe remembers her, the French med student from that first day, the one Julian would've liked. “ _This_ is Edward.”

“Seriously, um,” Babe says, rubbing the back of his neck. “It's Babe. Call me Babe.”

“Lovely to meet you, Babe,” she says, and she leans in, gives Babe a quick kiss on each cheek. 

“Yeah, you too,” Babe says, slightly awkward and not expecting the cheek-kissing. Renee just smiles warmly and doesn't mention it.

“Hey, anyone want a beer?” Spina calls from the kitchen. “They're cold just from being outside.”

Babe defers to Gene, because even though he brought the beer, and even though he already knows Spina, the point of the day is Gene, and meeting Gene’s friends.

“I’ll take one,” Gene responds. Then asks, “Babe? Renee?”

“No, I still have my wine,” she says.

“Yeah,” Babe accepts. “Thanks.”

Renee finishes clearing the table, stacking the textbooks on Gene and Spina’s low bookshelf, and tells Babe, “You came on the right day; it was my turn to cook.”

“Yeah?” Babe asks. He watches as Gene helps Spina carry the beers over, and takes his bottle when Gene offers it.

“Oh yeah,” Renee says. “I made _carbonnade flamande_ —just a classic Belgian stew—really good on a cold day. Last week, Ralph just gave up and ordered in.”

“Got you your panang curry, didn't I?” Spina asks, and Renee just answers with a laugh.

It goes pretty well, Babe thinks. On the whole. The night is probably a little more civilized than when Gene met Bill and the boys, but they still tell embarrassing stories about Gene: the time Spina scared him with a life-size model skeleton, the time he fell asleep in anatomy. Renee keeps offering Babe more stew and ignoring him when he says he’s full, so he thinks that’s a good sign. That’s what Babe’s ma did with Julian all the time, back when he was skin and bones as a kid.

When Renee leaves, taking her empty dutch oven with her, she leans in to give Babe a double kiss again, and says close, “You’re a good one. I can tell.”

Babe blushes and stutters and says, “You too…?” She just laughs, a carefree thing, and makes Gene walk her to the door. They talk in the entryway, too quiet for Babe to hear, although he tries to eavesdrop.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Spina says. “Even if we hated you, Gene likes what he likes.”

“Right,” Babe deadpans. “Thanks.”

Spina just winks—honest to god _winks_ , the first time Babe has ever seen someone seriously do that outside of the movies—and then abandons Babe for his bedroom.

Babe and Gene leave the living room, too, once Renee’s gone, and head back to Gene’s room where they lie together on Gene’s bed, fully clothed.

“So do I pass the test?” Babe asks.

“The test?” Gene asks. He’s on his side, propped up on his elbow as he trails his fingertips over Babe’s forearm, his palm. “That’s not ‘til you meet Merriell.”

“After the stories, I think I'm better just staying in Philly,” Babe says. “Never meeting him.”

“Give it enough time and he’ll come up here, track you down,” Gene says. “But I don't want to talk about Merriell.”

“Yeah?” Babe asks. He pushes Gene gently by the shoulder so that he’s flat on his back, and then Babe straddles his hips. He curves his spine and leans down, presses his lips against the corner of Gene’s jaw. “What do you want to talk about?”

Gene palms Babe’s ass and rocks up into him, just a little bit, just to show interest. He says, “I shoulda asked you to pack a bag and stay the night. You should stay the night anyway.”

“Well,” Babe says, smiling. “Twist my arm.”

 

Normally Gene rides his bike to the hospital, but the next morning, he walks it along the sidewalk next to Babe. It's sort of far to walk the whole way, but they leave plenty early and grab coffee, and Babe has a hard time keeping himself from looking at Gene, and from smiling uncontrollably down at the sidewalk.

“Busy day today?” Babe asks. Judging by how tired Gene looks, it seems like he's always busy.

“Not too bad, I don't think,” Gene says. “Just gotta make rounds, study. Long hours but shouldn't be crazy. You?”

Babe shrugs. “Gotta do my re-enrollment paperwork, but that's about it.”

“You haven't finished that yet?” Gene asks. Babe can tell he doesn't mean anything by it, and is just genuinely curious.

“No,” Babe says. “Someone’s been distracting me, demanding sexual services at all hours of the day.”

“ _Demanding_. Must be hard for you.” Gene rolls his eyes and just barely fails to hold back a smile.

“Yeah, _demanding_ , but it’s alright,” Babe says, smiling again. Smiling still. “He’s got good hands, you know?”

Gene breathes out a huff of laughter and says, “Sounds like a keeper.”

“Sure does,” Babe agrees, and when they get to the hospital, Babe leans over and kisses Gene goodbye, Gene’s bike between them.

Babe keeps walking once Gene’s gone, even though he was thinking about calling an uber, and instead he takes out his phone and calls his ma. She worries, he knows she does, and she picks up on the second ring.

“Babe?” she says. “Oh, Babe, _hi_.”

“Hi, Ma.”

“How’re you doing? How’s Billy?” she asks. She seems genuinely surprised and excited that Babe called, and it makes Babe feel like dirt. 

“Good, we’re good,” Babe says. He thinks about mentioning Gene, but doesn't want to jinx it. If he tells his ma, she'll want him to bring Gene around, she’ll want to feed him ‘til he gains ten pounds, and Babe’s not ready for that. Not saying he won't ever be, but they only just met the friends. So instead he says, “I’m doing that Standardized Patient thing, the one that Julian told me about? It started a while ago.”

“Oh, honey,” she says, and then falls silent for a second. She knows him, so she doesn't say any of the things he doesn't want her to say. “Well, how’s that going?”

“Good,” Babe says. He shrugs even though she can't see it, and his shoulders are stiff from the cold. “Kinda boring, honestly, but between that and the re-enrollment stuff, I'm busy.”

The re-enrollment thing is a bit of a lie; Babe honestly hasn’t even looked through all the pages, which are about as thick as a textbook.

A young girl walks past with her dog, which is easily larger than her. Babe skirts around them, and hits the button for the crosswalk. It's freezing, and he wiggles his nose, just for movement’s sake, as he shifts his weight back and forth on each foot.

“If you want to see _busy_ , you should come home,” his ma says. “I'm cooking up all sorts of lasagna and chili and cheesy potatoes for the freezer.”

The crosswalk signal still has the red hand up, but no cars are coming, and so Babe just jaywalks it, and jogs across the quiet street.

“Yeah?” Babe asks. “Everyone coming over for Christmas?”

“Everyone except Uncle Robert. Jack’ll be home from college in a week, and Jimmy goes on break on the twentieth.”

“Oh,” Babe says. “That sounds good, having everyone there.”

“Yeah, it'll be nice,” Ma says. “You let Joe know that if he's not going home, he can come on over, too, alright? Always welcome.”

“Which Joe?”

“The skinny one, from California. San Diego?” she says.

“San Francisco,” Babe corrects. She means Lieb, who is an asshole on a good day, but somehow hits it out of the park with parents. “And yeah, I'll ask him, but he's probably going home.”

“Well, anybody’s welcome,” she says. “Not just him.” And again Babe’s thinking of Gene, wondering if he’s going home to Louisiana, or if he's staying here in the cold and living out of the library.

“Okay,” Babe says, “I’ll let you—whoa, shit!”

He slips on a patch of ice, feet sliding uncontrollably as his arms wave in an effort to stay upright. It doesn't help, and he winds up on his back, dazed and staring at the early morning sky.

“Babe? Are you okay?”

“Oh my god,” Babe says, and then he starts laughing, still lying on the ground, his back soaked from the slush and the ice. “I hit a patch of ice.”

His ma, rather than worry, just starts laughing too. She says, “You’re alright.”

“Alright? Ma, I just split my ass open on the cement.”

“Babe,” she insists, and he knows with a sudden dread that she's not talking about the fall. She repeats herself, repeats Bill. “You’re alright.”

 

Babe goes home and thinks about that all day, about the warm way she had said, _You’re alright._ He collapses on the couch and puts on the tv, _The Godfather,_ already a quarter of the way into it, and he keeps hearing her say it, _You’re alright. You’re alright._

Babe’s not fucking alright. Julian’s fucking dead.

At some point, he takes a long shower with the water turned hot enough it turns his skin pink, and then he dresses in sweats. _The Godfather_ turns into _Part II_ turns into _Part III_ , and Babe sits there and watches them all. He thinks about Gene, about how he really likes Gene. Thinks about the small way Gene smiles. How Gene makes him feel.

Gene makes him feel like his ma is right. Babe feels guilty about it.

Bill comes home from class late into the afternoon, loud in the entryway the way he always is, the way that Babe knows just from knowing him his entire life: boots kicked off, coat falling off the hanger, keys tossed on the small table.

“I know it was you, Fredo!” Bill calls out, probably having heard lines of dialogue from the tv. He rounds the corner, and Babe corrects him.

“This is _Part III_ , but thanks for playing.” 

Bill pulls a face. He says, “Get outta here, wise ass.”

“Thirty day notice for eviction,” Babe tells him. Bill just ignores it and heads to the kitchen.

“I'm starvin’ like you wouldn't believe,” he says. “If I make pasta, you want some?”

“Uh,” Babe hedges. He’s not really hungry, although he hasn't really eaten all day, either.

“I think I got some of Mom’s sauce still,” Bill says. “In the freezer.”

Babe hears Bill rummage through the freezer, and that's hard to say no to. “You're willing to share it?” 

“One time offer,” Bill tells him, and so Babe gives in.

He’s about to respond with something other than just _alright_ , but his phone buzzes against his thigh, distracting him. It's a text from Gene, a picture of a life-size skeleton model decorated with lights and gold tinsel, a few red bulb ornaments hanging from the rib cage.

 _Dramatization_ , Gene says. _Artist took some liberties._

Babe starts to smile, just thinking about Gene saying that, but stops when he remembers, _You’re alright._

“Hey,” Bill says. “The heck’s up with you?”

“Nothing,” Babe says, and he locks the screen of his phone, and slides his phone back into the pocket of his sweats. 

An hour later, when they're going best-of-three in Rock-Paper-Scissors for who has to do the dishes, Babe feels his phone buzz again. A quick glance at his phone, and it's Gene, calling this time.

Babe stares at the screen. It keeps buzzing.

 _You're alright,_ he thinks. The headlights of the other car. Babe doesn't know if he actually saw them, or if he's just picturing the memory of other headlights he’s seen in his life. And just before the headlights, Julian laughing as they walked out to his car, parked curbside next to the row houses where they grew up, where Babe spent his entire life, where Julian spent most of his once he moved over from Alabama. Julian was wearing one of Babe’s old jackets, which he had borrowed and never given back. Bill yelling out his bedroom window, making sure they remembered his order. Babe’s annoyance that Bill wouldn't come with. Now his relief. And now, both Bill and Babe’s ma, _You're alright._

Well, he shouldn't be alright, he thinks. He's a shit friend.

“You gonna answer that, or should I?” Bill asks.

Babe shakes himself out of his thoughts. 

“Nah,” he says, silencing the call. “It's nothing.”

 

That night, when he's come to terms with what he's got to do, Babe leaves his apartment with purpose. He's not going to change his mind; he doesn't _want_ to change his mind. He tosses on his jacket as he crossed the living room to the front door and steels his nerves.

Bill asks, “Where ya goin’?”

“Out,” Babe says, and he'd leave it at that, except for how it's Bill. So he adds, “Back in like an hour.”

It's freezing out—below, technically—and the coldest it's been all winter. Babe’s skin prickles, and the wind cuts right through everything he’s wearing, and if it weren’t for it being the right thing to do, Babe would probably turn around and head back home.

Gene deserves better than a text, though. So Babe ducks his head and deals with the weather as it is.

Gene answers the door. That's good, at least, because he doesn't want Spina around for this, doesn't want anybody around. Gene looks soft and tired, wearing a dark sweater. Babe is freezing, shivering and shaking, and he feels like he's about to fly apart.

“Hey,” Gene says, confused. “Did I know you were coming?”

“No,” Babe says. “No, I just needed to talk to you.”

“Oh,” Gene says. He smiles a little. He steps back. “Come on in.”

“No, um. Here is fine,” Babe clarifies, and Gene starts to look worried now, his smile slipping.

“Babe?” he asks.

And Babe almost backs out then, just looking at Gene. But it's not fair for him to have Gene, not when Julian can't have _anyone_ anymore, not when Babe did what he did. 

“Hey, listen,” Babe says, too loud and too casual. He looks over Gene’s shoulder and into the apartment, looks at the door frame, looks down at the steps. “It's really not you, but I can't do this. I don't want to do this.”

He gestures between the two of them and hates himself for it, but tells himself that this is what he has to do. He had planned it better, had a speech and everything. All the words he planned are gone now, though. Now he barely knows what he’s saying until he’s already said it.

Gene shakes his head a little and asks, “Why? I thought—What’s goin’ on?”

“What d’you mean?” Babe asks, slightly uneven. He hopes he doesn't sound as hysterical as he feels. He doesn't want to say anything that's not true, anything bad about Gene, but he needs this to be done. “Nothing’s going on. I just don't want to date you. It's really not you, okay? You're great.”

“But everything was fine this morning,” Gene says, sounding stunned, and Babe shrugs.

“Well, now it's not, okay?” Babe says. He takes a deep breath, and lets it out through his nose. “I just wanted to tell you in person. That's it. It's not working out. Okay?”

“Okay...” Gene says slowly, like he's not fully with it. “Can we talk about this?”

“No,” Babe says.

“Are you—”

“Yeah,” Babe says. _Sure, serious, alright._ Whatever it is that Gene was going to say, Babe’s it.

“I don't even know what to say,” Gene tells him, and he still looks so blindsided by everything that's going on. Babe feels bad about that, just because there's no way Gene could’ve ever known everything about Julian. No one but Babe knows everything about that.

“I dunno,” Babe says with a shrug. He feels hollow. “You don't really have to say anything.”

He steps back from Gene’s door and stuffs his hands in his pockets, and lets himself look at Gene again. Babe loves looking at him, and hates the way he looks right now. 

Babe doesn't say goodbye, just turns around and heads down the street, leaving Gene in the doorway. Already he regrets it. It's good that he can't take something like that back.

The wind is howling as Babe walks, and he really shouldn't look back, but he does. Gene’s gone, no longer standing there, and that's for the best, really. This is what Babe wanted.

He pulls his shoulders up to his ears for warmth. The wind stings his eyes and makes them water.

 

He means to go home. He really does. But for some reason, instead he calls an uber driver and asks to be dropped at Toccoa, where he grabs a seat at the bar. It’s crowded, but not so crowded that Babe can’t find a single barstool, and when Lip comes over to open Babe’s tab, Babe orders a Yuengling. 

“Just you tonight?” Lip asks, standing at the tap and filling Babe’s pint glass.

“Yeah,” Babe says, and maybe there’s something to the way he said it, because Lip pauses and looks at him.

“You alright?” he asks.

“Fucking peachy,” Babe says to him, and the because it’s not exactly fair of him to be a dick to Lip, he adds, “Break-up.”

“Ah,” Lip says. “Sorry to hear that. You let me know if you need anything, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Babe says, and he’d probably feel a little more grateful for it if he weren’t already feeling angry and guilty. And sad. Of course Babe’s sad, too.

Lip heads off to the corner of the bar, talking to his boyfriend, and Babe stares blankly up at the tvs, all of which are showing something sports related. They’re talking about curling on the screen right in front of him. Babe doesn’t know anything about curling, and that makes it hard to follow along.

Babe takes a sip of his beer and rests his elbows on the bartop. He feels like his whole fucking life is getting away from him. He doesn’t want to think about Gene’s face, about the way it crumpled, his whole demeanor folding as he said, _Why? I thought_ —and the way he just let Babe walk away.

And the way Babe _did_ walk away, because he had to. Because he did something horrible and Julian’s fucking dead, and now Babe doesn’t get a prize just for surviving. Babe shouldn’t get Gene if he can’t even remember to think about his best friend, who died in front of him right as Babe was watching.

Babe can’t let himself get distracted like that.

Someone jostles Babe’s elbow, and without looking, Babe tosses a wave over his shoulder and says, “Sorry, man,” even though he hadn’t done anything. Took up a lot of space, maybe. It was a knee-jerk reaction more than anything else. Then, just as he’s about to take a sip of his beer, he gets jostled again, and Babe spills all down the front of his shirt. He turns around.

“Hey,” he snaps. “Fucking watch it, man.”

The guy—lanky, blonde, weak jaw—curls his upper lip and says, “You fucking watch it, man. I’m ordering a drink here.”

“Yeah, and I’m fucking drinking here,” Babe replies, and he _knows_ this is a bad idea. He _knows_ it sure as he’s known anything else, because Bill’s not here to back him up, and this fucking asshole’s probably got a load of fucking asshole friends.

Lip steps up across the bar to where they are and says, “Babe, Cobb, come on. Knock it off.”

Babe rolls his eyes—at Lip, at Cobb, at whoever—and goes back to what’s left of his beer. Cobb, however, says, “Yeah, _Babe_. You better—”

Babe just turns around and punches him in the mouth. No thought, no plan, just— _bam_. Cobb falls back and is held up by his friend, and then he surges forward, tackles Babe into the bar. Babe pushes back, the two of them punching and going at it. He gets clocked something good in the eye, but Cobb’s the one with a fat lip.

It’s a pretty even fight, though, as good as Babe’s had, but then one of Cobb’s friends jumps in the mix and Babe ends up on the ground, getting the shit kicked out of his side. He brings his hands up to protect his head, and then just as quickly as it happened, the blows stop. Babe looks up and Lip’s spooky boyfriend has Cobb’s friend tackled to the ground and is beating the shit out of him. Cobb is slinking away.

“Enough!” Lip yells. “Fucking— _Ron_! That’s enough!”

Spooky boyfriend—Ron—looks up, his hair tousled and his face blank, and pulls away from the guy. When he’s standing, he reaches out a hand to Babe, and for a second, Babe just stares back at him, confused. Ron waggles his fingers a little, face still blank, and that’s when Babe takes the hand up.

Lip is leaning over the bar, his face red and angry. He points to Cobb and his friend and says, “You two, get the fuck out.” Then to Ron, he points and says, “You two out back.”

Ron nods sharply and then looks at Babe. “Come on.”

Babe grabs his beer, still an inch or two left in the bottom of the glass, and follows Ron as he ducks behind the bar and then into the back alley. Once they’re there, Ron leans against one of the empty crates and crosses his arms. He studies Babe. Babe tries not to let that unsettle him and instead finishes his beer.

“Thanks, by the way,” he says when he done. “For jumping in.”

“I like a fair fight,” Ron tells him evenly. “Two-on-one is cowardly.”

“Well, still,” Babe says. “‘Preciate it.”

Ron nods, and the door to the bar is thrown open as Lip walks out. He looks at Babe, and then to Ron, and asks, “You guys kidding me with this?”

Babe sort of feels bad about it, because Lip’s been nothing but a good guy to him, and so he ducks his head, musses up his hair as he searches his skull for bumps and bruises.

Ron, for his part, just shrugs and lights up a smoke. He says, “You can’t be surprised.”

“I’m not,” Lip responds, and just when Babe worries he’s going to add, _I’m just disappointed_ , Lip turns to Babe and instead asks, “How you holding up?”

“Me?” Babe asks. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah?” Lip asks, skeptical.

“Your face is bleeding,” Ron points out, and motions two of his fingers to the outside corner of his own eye.

Babe gingerly touches his face where Ron had gestured, and his fingertips come back red. He thinks of Julian, not because the blood necessarily reminds him of Julian, but because after everything that happened with Gene, it _should_. He says, “Oh.”

Lip watches for a minute and then says, “Let me grab some ice.”

He heads inside, and Ron lets Babe bum a cigarette. It’s appreciated almost as much as the fighting was.

 

Lip knows Babe too well, and so he doesn’t let Babe leave Toccoa alone. Instead, he takes Babe’s phone and calls Bill, and Bill comes to pick him. It’s only four or so blocks back to their apartment, through the slush and the cold, but Babe supposes Bill’s there to keep Babe from making other bad decisions. Babe hunches further into his jacket with each step, his nose freezing and his breath visible. He’s already used up a lifetime’s worth of terrible decisions. He’s miserable.

Bill wastes no time. He asks Babe before they even make it halfway back to the apartment, “So what was that?

Babe almost responds with, _Obviously_ _I got into a fight_ , and the only reason he doesn’t is because it’d just be prolonging the inevitable. So instead he says, “Gene and I broke up.”

“What the fuck,” Bill says. He skids on a patch of ice, and Babe reaches out to hold him upright. “Seriously? Who the fuck does that rat fink think he is?”

Babe snorts, although he’s not laughing. He wants to say, _No, I broke up with him,_ but those words stick in his throat, and he hates that they're true. Instead, he says, “Come on, don't talk about him like that.”

“What?” Bill asks, disbelieving. He’s silent for a while, just the sound of their boots crunching on snow and cars driving past. “Right, so… What happened?”

It’s a good question. Babe doesn’t want to answer it, but he will, because so long as he’s answering this question, Bill won’t be asking the one Babe _can’t_ answer.

“It’s fucked up,” Babe warns.

“So tell me where he lives,” Bill says, “I’ll go grab Liebgott and we’ll tune the guy up good.”

“No, no, I mean—me,” Babe says. Bill’s silent for a second, and Babe can tell it’s not because he doesn’t know what to say, but because he doesn’t know how to say it. Babe appreciates it, and appreciates the way Bill will back him up consistently, all the time. They don’t make ‘em like Bill anymore.

“You’re not fucked up,” Bill insists. “You’re grieving.”

And there it is, that word. Babe hates that word. Babe’s not been _grieving_ ; Babe’s been getting his rocks off with a hot med student while Julian’s dead. 

“What’s grieving get me? He’s dead, isn’t he?” Babe asks. He knows it’s unfair the second the words are out of his mouth, but once they’re out there, there’s not much Babe can do about it.

 

“Babe,” Bill says again, and he lets out a sigh. He shakes his head. A moment passes in silence, and then Bill says, “Your hair’s a fuckin’ mess,” he tells Babe, lightly poking the side of Babe’s head, and then he tosses an arm around Babe’s shoulders.

They walk the rest of the way in silence.

 

Babe spends the entirety of the next day moping. He knows that's what he's doing, and he knows he doesn't really have the right to, but he mopes anyway. Julian’s dead. Gene’s gone. Babe’s face fucking throbs. He sits alone in his apartment and eats an entire box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch while sitting on the couch, watching _Antiques Roadshow_ and a documentary about a man who lived with grizzly bears. Babe almost cries at the end.

Things have been better.

“I didn't like him, anyway,” Bill says when he comes back and sees the mess Babe made of the living room. He and Toye are killing time in between classes, and despite it being two in the afternoon, Babe’s still in pajamas and slippers. “Never trust someone that quiet. Joe’s that quiet.”

“Fuck you, too,” Toye says lazily, messing around on his phone. 

“He’s just angrier about it,” Bill adds.

Babe lets out a sigh and stretches his legs out on the coffee table, letting his feet flop to the sides. His cereal bowl is still sitting there, just a bit of milk left in the bottom, and he knocks the spoon out, and tiny splatters of milk with it.

“This fucking sucks,” Babe says. He means Gene and Julian and missing a semester, and being such a nutcase all the time now. It's a weird thing, how he did this to himself.

He's supposed to hate it. He _does_ hate it.

“Could be worse,” Toye points out. “You could be going to my engineering class in a half hour.”

“Not helping,” Babe says, “although that would be worse.” He rubs at his eyes and hisses a breath when he knuckles the bruise. 

“Let me guess,” Toye says. “I should see the other guy?”

“I _hope_ I see the other guy,” Bill says. “Crack him one in the mouth for fuckin’ with my friend.”

He means it, too, which is nice. Babe would destroy whoever fucked with Bill, too, so it's fair turnaround. He thinks about the guy who fucked with Julian—the other driver, the one who hit them—and wishes he could do something there, too, although Babe’s not sure that would matter. With Julian dead, what's the point? It's not gonna bring him back. So what’s that fix?

That’s something Julian would’ve said, _What’s that fix?_ For all that Babe is the one with the nickname, Julian was the babe in the woods of them, the one who always forgave and always forgot and always looked for the silver lining. Julian was the one of them that was a good person, through and through, and now he’s the one of them that's dead. 

Where's the silver lining in that?

Gene seems like a good person, too, from what Babe saw of him. Seems real steady with his hands, intent on helping, intent on saving. A part of Babe wonders what he’d say, if he knew what Babe did. If he’d think Babe tried to do the right thing, or if there’s something inside of Babe that just isn't right. 

Maybe it's better that Gene’s gone, then. Maybe it's better that Babe never learn what Gene would’ve thought.

“—abe?” Bill’s looking at him. He whistles. “Earth to Babe, ya home?”

Babe blinks. “What?”

“We’re heading out,” he says slowly, implying he’s said it at least once before. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Babe says.

“Want us to bring you back a to-go box from the caf?” Bill asks. 

Toye adds, “Think it’s spaghetti night.”

The both of them laugh at the same time and then, in their best imitation of Perconte, say simultaneously, “This ain't spaghetti! This is college noodles with ketchup.”

“Dunno what he’s talkin’ about,” Bill says. “I'm Italian, and that’s the best meal you can get there.”

They both look to Babe, waiting for him to join in. He used to mock Perconte pretty hard for being picky, and used to do an impression of him that was second only to Luz’s. Babe looks at the clock on their satellite tv box. It's a quarter to three. 

“No thanks. I'm going back to bed,” Babe says, and he does.

 

Babe doesn't see anyone for the rest of the day, because he sleeps through it. When he wakes up in the morning, Bill’s door is shut, which means he’s sleeping, and there's a text on his phone from Gene. _Been thinking about it and if I did something, I'm sorry._ Babe doesn’t reply. He tries to read and then tries to watch tv, but he’s antsy, and the text makes him feel anxious. It’s not so much that he wants to really do anything, but he’s sick of the apartment, tired from so much nothing. 

Fed up, Babe just heads out. He doesn't shower and doesn't change his clothes, but he does put his winter coat on over his hoodie and sweats, and then he quietly leaves the apartment.

Currahee’s not far. Babe’s feet know the walk by rote from going there so frequently in the weeks since Julian, and he’s pleased to find it not packed.

At the register, he orders his usual small coffee from Harry the barista. He has his two bucks out and ready to pay before Harry even rings him up, and is surprised when a voice from the back yells, “Give him a pastry!”

Harry looks confused for a second, glancing behind himself towards the door marked _Employees Only_ , but then grabs a small plate and looks over at Babe expectantly from behind the pastry case.

“Oh, um,” Babe says. “Nothing for me, just the coffee.”

Harry looks at him a beat longer and says, “You just heard Nix say you get a free pastry, didn't you?”

“Who the hell is Nix?” Babe asks. 

“...The owner?” Harry says. His phone starts ringing loudly and he pulls his apron aside to get to his pockets.

“Oh. You mean Lew.”

“Well, I guess if you're on a first name basis with him—hey, Kitty,” Harry says, the last part directed into phone.

“Look, just the coffee,” Babe says, and Harry rolls his eyes.

“I'd say I miss you more, but I hate when couples do that,” Harry says, phone wedged between his shoulder and his ear. He hands Babe his coffee and a small plate with a cinnamon roll; Babe doesn't want it, but takes it anyway. “Plus, I really _do_ miss you more—see you later, Babe—no, not you, Kitty —”

Babe waves the best he can, considering his hands are occupied, and heads to an open table, where he puts his stuff down and pulls a book out of his bag.

Grabbing a seat, Babe props his foot up on the chair across from him. He gets maybe five pages into his book—not really retaining any of it—before the chair is being pulled out and his foot falls unceremoniously to the floor.

“Hey,” Lew says, sitting down. He looks focused despite looking unshaven and unkempt, and points to the half-eaten cinnamon roll. He adds, “Hope you liked it.”

“Oh,” Babe says. “It's great, yeah. You didn't have to.”

“Most people just say thanks, kid.”

“Thanks,” Babe says, and he tries to keep it from sounding sarcastic, but isn't quite sure he manages.

“Right, so the reason I'm here,” Lew starts, and Babe interrupts. 

“So it's a bribe.” He copies Lew’s gesture towards the cinnamon roll.

“Advance payment,” Lew corrects. “I’m looking for advice.”

“Oh jeez,” Babe says. He scrubs a hand over his face, not wanting to deal with this. “I'm bad at advice.”

“You'll be fine,” Lew says, waving Babe’s comment away. “I just need to get a gift for Dick. You two get along.”

“I don't even know him,” Babe points out, and Lew pulls a face that shows he doesn't quite believe it, even though it's true.

“Last year, I kept things small. There was a new Michelin starred restaurant, and the whole place was booked months out. Real big deal, but I got us a table. Only, Dick grew up deprived and in the middle of nowhere—he doesn't care about food, and he hated the line-cutting on sheer principle alone.”

“How did you even do that?” Babe asks. “Get a reservation when it was already booked.”

“Dear old Stanhope still holds a lot of sway,” Lew says.

“Who?”

“No one,” Lew says, waving a hand. “Anyway, so for this year I was thinking of taking us to Florida, getting out of the cold, but he hates anything that costs more than twenty bucks.”

“Yeah...” Babe hedges. He doesn't know Dick at all, but agrees that that sounds miserable. _Look at how much money I have_. Babe would hate both of those things, too, even though he wonders where Lew got his money from in the first place.

“So the question is,” Lew says, “what do you get the guy who has nothing because he _wants_ nothing?”

“I really don't know,” Babe says. “For my last birthday, we rented a cabin and got drunk in the Catskills.”

“Dick doesn't drink,” Lew says. Babe remembers. 

“I know that,” Babe says. “I just don't know _him_. I don't want to, like, send you on a day trip over to Pennsylvania Dutch country and then have it turn out he’s allergic to chow-chow and hates wood furniture.”

“Actually, he’d probably fit in well with the Amish,” Lew jokes. And then, quietly and more thoughtfully, “The Amish, huh. His family’s near there.”

“Would he want to see them? I don't know. Sorry,” Babe says with a shrug. And then feeling vaguely frustrated, he asks, “Why are you even asking me? Just because Dick and I are both quiet doesn't mean we have anything in common.”

Lew looks at him like he grew an extra head and then says, “You’re not quiet. You're just... thinking.”

“I’m _thinking_?” Babe asks. No one has ever accused him of that before; he used to be talk first, think never.

“Yeah,” Lew says like it's that simple. He pulls a flask out of his pocket and unscrews the cap. “Nothing wrong with that. Dick’s a thinker, too.”

“Something’s wrong with you,” Babe tells Lew honestly, and Lew laughs.

“More than something,” he says, “but what do you know? At least I showered this morning.”

He pours a shot of whiskey into Babe’s mug without asking, and Babe accepts it without thanking. Lew raises the flask towards Babe in a cheers.

“To an Amish anniversary,” he says, and takes a sip.

Babe, unsure if Lew’s joking or not, rolls his eyes.

 

Babe thinks about it the entire next day, him not being quiet but being a thinker. He tries to focus on the distinction between the two, because that's what he likes, the idea that he's this careful person now, the type of person that doesn't hurt others with carelessness, thoughtlessness. The kind of person who won't hurt Bill the way he hurt Julian. Before talking with Lew, Babe never would have described himself like that, but now, he can't stop. Maybe it's just that he thinks more now because of what happened when he didn't. Once bitten, and all that.

If Julian were alive, he'd probably die laughing at the thought of Babe being a thinker. They did a lot of stupid shit together, the three of them, like graffiti tagging the steps of the Museum of Art and sneaking into abandoned subway stations, not realizing that the tracks were still in use even though the stations weren’t.

 _Hey_ , Babe texts Bill now that he's thinking about it, about growing up right here in South Philly. _How ‘bout that craps game?_ There’s only one he could be talking about.

A moment later, Bill texts back, _You mean the one where I won 500 bucks or the one where you got us lifted by the cops?_

Babe almost snorts a laugh because they're one in the same, and they were using loaded dice besides, which was half the trouble. Of course, Bill likes to think of it differently, likes to paint a picture where he’s untouchable, and imagines that no one remembers Frannie having to step in before Bill got himself tossed into juvie.

Later that night, after drinking booze stolen from their parents’ cabinets, Bill had told them that he was going to ask Fran to marry him. Babe didn't say it—or he might have—but back then he thought Bill was crazy. Fran was just one girl, and they were only sixteen at the time. 

_Not now,_ Bill had assured them. _Not yet. But when she got the cop to just walk away… I fell in love with her like I never knew what a broad was._

 _I still don't know what a broad is,_ Julian deadpanned, mimicking Bill’s accent. _I'm gonna die a virgin._

Babe clapped him on the shoulder. _Great, then you can open the pearly gates for us._ He was seeing Doris, then. He was sinning a couple times a week, and was real pleased about it.

 _You'll find someone who can put up with you eventually,_ Bill said, and Julian had smiled and rolled his eyes.

And it wasn't just Bill who believed that. Babe thought Julian would find someone eventually, too, because Julian was a real good guy, just shy as hell. But then a handful of years later, Julian died, still a virgin, and Babe was too busy sleeping with Gene to worry about it. Too busy having all the things with Gene that Julian never had with anyone.

Someone knocks twice at the front door, but Babe doesn’t bother getting up, busy wondering what circle of hell a bastard like him belongs in. Two seconds later, the door’s swinging open and Liebgott’s walking through. They all know that he and Bill leave their door unlocked whenever either of them are home—stupid, maybe, and unsafe definitely, but someone’s always on their way over, and someone always on their way out. Bill and Babe’s place is just where they all collect, despite Bill saying that everyone’ll need to start chipping in for rent if they keep it up.

Babe glances up from his book and says, “Hey.” 

Lieb doesn’t answer, just throws Babe the laziest of waves and collapses on the couch without even taking off his Carhartt, or the sweatshirt that he’s got on underneath it. Seems like overkill to Babe, all that clothing, but Lieb’s obviously in a terrible mood, glaring at the wall and sitting back, slumped in the corner of the sectional with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, and so Babe doesn’t bring it up.

Babe’s in a terrible mood, too. He's gotten good at just not mentioning it.

“Bill’s not here,” Babe says, even though it doesn’t seem like Lieb’s here for anybody, really. “Neither is—well, I’m the only one here.”

“Good,” Liebgott says shortly, and that’s when Babe notices it: the faintest of marks on either side of Lieb’s neck, and a tiny shadow just under his jaw. At first, Babe’s certain it’s just coloring that’s rubbed off from the sweatshirt, but then he looks some more, and— “Fucking _what_ , Babe?”

“Don’t _fucking_ _what_ me,” Babe says, and then he rolls onto his side so that he can reach out and tuck a finger in the neck of Lieb’s hoodie. He tugs it down a little and breathes, “Holy shit, who the hell tried to throttle you?” It’s not _bad_ , really, just a couple of barely there fingertips that Babe thinks will be gone by morning, but the point is that they’re still there now.

Lieb smacks Babe’s hand away and says, “No one.” Then, “Web. It’s whatever, it’s nothing. And like you’re one to talk, anyway, with your fucking eye like that.”

“ _Web_ did that?” Babe asks incredulously, ignoring the jab about his eye. He thinks maybe he should call Bill, have him beat the tar outta Web, or a doctor and have him take a look at Liebgott. Not Gene, but maybe, if he’s their only option. What if Lieb has permanent damage, his neck or his esophagus or whatever? Someone tried to fucking _choke him out_ , and now he’s here, sitting on Babe’s couch, cool as a cucumber. Holy hell. Web must be dead in a ditch somewhere. “Where the hell is he? Does anyone—” 

“Hey,” Lieb snaps. “Look, it’s nothing, alright?” Babe stares at him with an open expression, and there must be something there that says he’s not going to drop it, because then Lieb rolls his eyes. “I wanted to try something,” he says haltingly, his voice like he’s talking to a scared animal, or like he’s desperately trying to convey that it’s not a big deal. “And I thought I would like it, but it turns out I did fucking _not_ , so I just want to sit here and not talk about it, and let this embarrassment kill me on your shitty, secondhand couch. Okay?”

“O _kay_ ,” Babe says after a beat, dragging out the second syllable. It’s a lot to process, and now that he knows no one tried to murder Liebgott, it’s also more than Babe wanted to know. He really does not know where to go from here. Liebgott doesn’t _seem_ like the kind of guy who’d want to talk. Babe doesn’t want to talk. It’s just hard to tell.

“Jesus Christ,” Lieb says, shaking his head slightly. “Worse than my own mother. Listen: _it’s fine_.”

And Babe wants to ask, _Yeah, but are you?_ only he doesn’t because he hated when people would ask him that, and hates when people _still_ ask him that, when people look at him like he’s something that needs to be handled by the edges. So instead, Babe lies back down and returns to his book.

Liebgott lets out a loud breath, and Babe lets out a quiet one.

A minute passes in silence and then Babe says, “You can watch whatever, but _Judge Judy_ ’s on at four.”

“Like I'm gonna fuckin’ be here long enough for that,” Lieb responds, and a minute later, the tv turns on, the sounds of an Olive Garden commercial filling the room.

Neither of them moves for a long while.

 

Lieb comes and goes, but Babe stays where he is, spread on the couch in old gym shorts and a pair of black crew-cut socks. He’s wearing a sweatshirt, too, with the hood up, but he doesn't know whose it actually is, just knows it's not his. Maybe it’s Julian’s.

Tossing his book aside, Babe fucks around on his phone, going down a wiki-hole that starts with the AVE Mizar—the freakish love child of a plane and a Ford Pinto—and ends, somehow, with John Harvey Kellogg. Nothing that Babe has any interest in outside of that exact moment, but it passes the time. Otherwise, what else would Babe be doing? He’s got nothing to do. 

He kills an entire hour on Wikipedia. It sort of makes Babe think of Skip Muck, how he loves reading the wiki pages for people who have disappeared, or unsolved murders. Julian would always joke that if Muck kept digging into things like that, Lip’s spooky boyfriend would come and off him, just to keep him from snooping around.

Babe’s so engrossed in what he's reading that he doesn't even realize anyone’s home from class until Toye speaks up. 

“Are you kidding me?” Toye asks. Bill walks in too, and flings his backpack down. “I've been looking for that sweatshirt for months!”

Babe looks down. The sweatshirt is homemade and has ironed-on letters that say, _I need a holiday_. It's literally the dumbest thing Babe has ever seen, which is why he never thought it was Toye’s.

“You… need a holiday?” Babe asks. 

“Yeah, named after me,” Toye snarks back like an insult.

Bill barks out a laugh. He says, “Joey T over here single-handedly killed Hitler. Can you believe it? Thanksgiving is now called Joe Toye Day.”

“Hey, fuck off,” Toye says, and collapses onto the couch opposite Babe. He looks over at Babe’s shorts. “Busy day?”

“Had to babysit Lieb,” Babe responds, half a joke and half not.

“Yeah? How'd that go?” Bill asks, and then walks away without waiting for the response, heading into the kitchen.

“Alright,” Babe responds with a shrug. Bill comes back with a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, and then he and Toye stare at Babe like they're waiting for a play-by-play. He shrugs again. “I dunno.”

“Ah, you're useless,” Bill says, waving his hand, and once he’s got the chip clip off the bag, Toye reaches over for a handful of chips.

The three of them sit there for a while, waiting for something good to come on tv, when Web drops by. They all know it's him just by the way he knocks twice before opening the door.

“Have you seen Joe?” he asks them. He doesn't even sit down before the question is out, doesn't even say hello.

Bill shakes his head. “Too many goddamn Joes in this group.”

“There’s _two_ ,” Toye says. “And no, but Babe has.”

Web looks at Babe as he flops himself down in the open armchair, and then sighs as he looks up towards the ceiling. “I think he’s avoiding me,” Web says. “He’s mad. It's irritating, trying to deal with him when he’s like this.”

“I feel for you,” Bill says, shoving an entire Dorito in his mouth. “Fran irrigates me all the time.”

“Irri—? What? No,” Web says, looking torn between following up on _irrigates_ and turning the subject back to Liebgott. 

“He’s not mad,” Babe says. He usually loves when Bill fucks with Web, but he's just not in the mood for it today. “He’s embarrassed.”

“He _told_ you that?”

“I mean, no,” Babe says. “But we talked, and I have eyes.”

“Oh god,” Web says. He covers his eyes with one hand. “I don't want to talk about this.”

“Maybe not,” Bill agrees, “but I wanna hear about it. This sounds good.”

“Bill,” Toye says evenly. “Please shut up.”

Bill lazily tosses a pillow at Toye and says, “Watch it, you dirty rat, or I'll come at you like a madman.”

And that’s a Julianism, the word _madman_. Bill has this sponge-like quality to him, where he soaks up everything around him real quick. Sometimes it's just how to do things, like fix a bike or throw darts, but sometimes it's the way people talk, and he integrates it into his own speech. Julian was always calling him _Wild Bill,_ always calling him a _madman_ for the crazy things he would do: jumping off fire escapes, hopping fences into private property.

Bill must’ve picked up a lot of Babe Speak, too, but the two of them have been together for their entire lives, their birthdays separated by only a few short weeks, so it's hard to even tell what’s Babe Speak and what’s Bill, and what's just them.

It's funny, though—Babe remembers when Julian’s family moved in, when they first met Julian. Julian was the kind of kid who never even snuck into movie theaters, and they changed that real quick, but it must've been culture shock for him. Alabama to South Philly, totally different planets.

 _What did you just say?_ Julian had asked once, after Bill told him about their friends. He was wide-eyed like he couldn't believe it. They were just kids.

 _I called them sons of beetles, and nuts!_ Bill repeated. _And now you're driving me nuts, too!_

Julian looked back and forth between the two of them, Babe and Bill, and it was real awkward for a minute until Babe smiled and rolled his eyes.

 _You're a madman, I can tell,_ Julian said. He let out a breath and then smiled, shook his head. _Gonna have to watch out for you._

 _Yeah, maybe,_ Bill agreed.

 _But it's more fun if you don’t,_ Babe told him, and that was true. It _is_ true. Bill’s the funnest guy Babe knows, if you learn to just go along with it. 

“You still with us, Babe?” Toye asks, and Babe jumps at the sound of his name. “Or you sick of hearing about Web’s relationship, too?”

“Oh, come on,” Web interjects.

“Nah,” Babe says. “Sorry. Just thinking.”

“Yeah, well, enough of that,” Bill says. He sounds easy going, but Babe knows him, and knows when he’s worried just by the set of his jaw. “You'll hurt yourself.”

“Wouldn't want that,” Babe agrees.

“Thinking’s my job, anyway,” Web says. He’s trying real hard to look serious, but he can't hold a straight face to save his life. “I did my first two years at Harv—”

Bill tackles him off the armchair.

 

Thinking about it, Babe thinks he's doing well. Not himself, because he’s a fucking mess, but he’s doing right by the people he loves. Babe’s taking time from school, taking time to remember Julian, making sure Bill never learns what actually happened. He broke up with Gene. He’s taking his lumps.

He's not happy, but he shouldn't be, and so that's alright.

He wakes up in the middle of the night, wide awake from sleeping so much during the day, his mouth dry as a bone. Sliding out of bed to get a glass of water, Babe blindly crosses his bedroom to the door, stepping over everything that's lying all over the floor: his sneakers, Bill’s old phone charger, a video game controller that he took with him the last time he went to Muck and Penkala’s. Babe knows where everything is, even though his room looks like a war zone more so than anything else.

He hears Bill’s voice drifting down the hallway even before he sees Bill’s door ajar, the light spilling out. Babe can't hear what he’s saying, but he can make out Fran’s voice, too, and for a second, he thinks she came over sometime after Babe went to sleep. 

She hasn’t come over much since Julian, but Babe’s only just now realizing that.

“It's not that easy,” Bill is saying, and Babe doesn't mean to snoop—he really doesn’t, isn't nosy the way Bill is—but Bill’s voice sounds weird, sounds like how Babe hasn't heard it but four or five times in his life.

Bill sounds like he’s been crying.

“I know,” Fran says. “But what else can you do? Just be there for him. Nothing lasts forever.”

“I hope not. I fuckin’—I hope not, Frannie. I hate seein’ him like this.” 

It occurs to Babe then that they’re talking about him. Babe's not an idiot, so he knows that much, but he doesn't really know what Bill means. _Like this._ Like what?

Babe peeks around the doorframe and sees Bill stretched out on his mattress, propped up against the wall by a few pillows. His phone is held up as they video chat. He looks tired. Looks like Gene did, the bruises under his eyes. Babe would marvel over how he's never noticed it before, but he knows how Bill did it: Bill laughs and goofs off and smiles and threatens to take people to fist city, and everyone gets so distracted by his antics that they forget to even ask Bill how he’s been.

“Bill,” Fran says. “ _Baby_ , it's only been a couple of weeks. And he was right there when it happened.”

“I know. I know,” Bill says, and he rubs at his eyes with the heel of his palms, turning his face red. “I just fuckin’ need him, is all. I hate admittin’ it, but I do.”

“You can need him. He’s been there with you through everything. It's okay to need him.”

Bill let's out a rush of breath and then says, “It’s like everyone forgets that Julian was my friend, too. Does that make me a selfish asshole or what? And now I'm dealin’ with it on my own.”

Babe wants to bang down that door, wants to charge in and grab Bill by the shoulders and yell, _I’m right here, you dumb mutt! Julian’s gone, but I'm here!_ He doesn't, because his heart is in his throat, and he feels like dirt because it's not true. He's not here, not really. Not for Bill.

He almost forgets to breathe once he realizes that. He's been trying so hard to protect Bill from the truth that he kind of forgot Bill doesn't even know what Babe’s doing. Babe must just seem real fucked up to him. 

The thought lights a fire in his belly. Bill’s been there every time Babe’s ever needed him, from his first fist fight to his first date. Bill had reached every milestone before Babe had, and he pulled Babe up behind him, walked Babe through each and every step. And now, the one time Bill needs Babe to step up and lead? Now Babe craps out?

“It's startin’ to feel like I lost the both of them,” Bill says, his voice cracking. “I don't know how to get him back.”

And at that, Babe thinks—he’s going to be better. Babe’s going to fix this. Bill just said it himself, he needs Babe. And Babe’s going to be there for him in the way he wasn't for Julian. Maybe this is the reason behind it all, behind why Julian died but Babe didn't. Babe’s going to turn it around, turn back as close into his old self as he can, the self that Bill needs.

He can't be perfect, and won't ever be who he was again, but if Bill needs him to, he’ll sure as hell try.

Babe swallows. His mouth is still dry, and he needs a drink of water. He needs to shower and change his clothes. He needs to re-enroll in school.

He needs to get his shit together.

“He’ll come back to you, baby,” Fran says. “Just you wait.”

But fuck that. South Philly boys don't wait for anything. Babe’s starting now, gonna make himself look so good Bill won't notice the difference from before. 

He thinks of Gene, thinks of what Gene would say about the changed Babe, but that's done. Burned bridge, and something Babe doesn't deserve besides.

Gene had even liked Babe as is, at his lowest.

 _I like the looks of you,_ Gene had said one time after they had sex. He said it like it meant more than the words, his hand on the curve of Babe’s bare rib cage moving with each inhalation, each exhalation.

 _Just the looks?_ Babe had asked in response. He was joking around, because otherwise the conversation might be more serious than he could handle. 

_Everything_ , Gene had said. _I jus’ like you._

 _I just like you, too,_ Babe said. He’s never liked anyone as much before or since.

Babe steps away from Bill’s door and shakes his head. He can't be thinking like that. Gene doesn't matter, not when Gene’s a done deal and Bill’s still here.

Babe keeps walking down the hall, head spinning and heart pounding.

He’ll be better.

 

The next night, in order to prove it to himself that he can change, he sends out a group text to everyone that just says, _Toccoa? TOCCOA._ He doesn’t include a time or a date or anything; they all already know he means that night, and they’ll show up as early or as late as they want. It’s like a second home to them, and even though Babe doesn’t want to be there, he sure acts like he does.

“Alright, now we’re cookin’!” Bill says as they walk through the door. About half of the guys are already there: Muck and Penkala, Luz and Toye, Perco. Web’s there, too, but no Lieb. No Malarkey. No Skinny or Shifty.

“I’ll grab this round?” Babe says to the table. Bill’s already climbing over Penkala to the back of the booth, where Toye is rolling his eyes and trying to take up as much room as possible so Bill won’t fit.

“Yeah, but get an extra pitcher,” Perco says. “Bull’s on his way.”

“To Bull!” Luz yells and raises his glass, despite the fact that he’s the only one with any beer left, and even then it’s only a swig or two. Bill steals the glass out of his hand and downs it before Luz even knows what’s happening, and Babe uses the distraction as cover to slip away.

Lip’s at the bar, swamped and busy thanks to all the people that are out, but he sees Babe anyway as he’s handing a couple back their change. He gives Babe a wave before he even gets there and starts pulling out empty pitchers. “Usual?” 

“Yeah, but make it three,” Babe says, and watches as Lip fills them up quickly and efficiently.

“Eye feeling better?” Lip asks. Babe touches the scab and the mottled bruise reflexively. 

“It’s okay,” he says. “Wasn’t that bad to begin with. Where’s, uh—”

“Ron? Working.” Then Lip adds, joking, “He’ll be in later, though, if you’re waiting for backup before you get into another fight.”

“Hilarious,” Babe says dryly. “Thanks, Lip. Catch you later.” He hands Lip the money for his pitchers and turns to go, juggling the three pitchers between his spread fingers.

As he steps away, he hears Lip say, “Hey. Didn’t realize you were coming in today.” Babe glances over his shoulder; Lew’s there, and so is Dick, having just walked out from the back.

“It’s my bar,” Lew says. “I come here every day.”

“So that’s the first step done,” Dick says. “Maybe we can get him to actually work next.”

Lew laughs sarcastically and gives Dick a light shove, and Babe continues to his table. Bull’s there just settling in by the time Babe puts the pitchers down.

“Hey, Babe,” he says, a slight smile on his face.

“Yo, Bull, welcome back,” Babe tells him, and then Bull leans in and gives Babe a long, hard hug. He doesn’t say anything, not _I missed you_ or _Sorry about Julian_ , nothing, but Babe gets it anyway and hugs him back. “Glad you’re home.”

“Glad to be back.”

They pour out the pitchers into glasses and pass them around, making sure everyone’s got one. Muck’s the one pouring, and he’s sloppy with it, just lining up the glasses rim to rim and filling each one consecutively, dripping beer all over the tabletop, beer sloshing over the rims as the boys pass the glasses around. They probably needed the third pitcher just to make up for that alone.

“Hey, watch the smoke,” Luz says when he accepts his glass, an unlit cigarette held between two fingers of the same hand holding the beer. To get the cigarette out of harm’s way, he tucks it in the corner of his mouth, between his lips.

“Watch it your fucking self,” Toye mutters.

“Alright, hey!” Perco hollers. He stands up on his booth seat, already a little wobbly, and uses a hand on Web’s head to steady himself. He holds his pint out. “To the behemoth of a man who just came back to us—can’t say I blame you, Bull; we’re better than everyone else out there.”

“Here, here,” Luz says, the cigarette bobbing between his lips, and everyone else holds their glasses out and cheers before taking a sip. Babe does the same, and then Luz squeezes out of the booth past him, saying, “Hot chick finally went out to smoke, so I’ll be back.” He takes his pint with him and dips.

Babe thinks about the last time Bull saw Julian, and wonders if Bull even remembers it. Babe sure as hell doesn’t. How was he supposed to know he needed to? How was he supposed to know what would happen? He doesn’t remember a lot of things, and feels pretty guilty about it.

He glances at Bill, and Bill’s already looking at him, so Babe glances away and clears his throat. He puts on a smile and says, “Hey, who wants to play darts?”

The boys cut into uproarious laughter, because Babe’s shit at darts, or so they say. And he may be, but Babe thinks it’s more than high time he got lucky.

“What the hell,” Muck says, shrugging. “I could use the money.”

Muck slides out of the booth and Babe rolls his eyes. 

He’s trying.

 

Things get interesting by the time Liebgott walks in, buried in layers to keep him warm—a sweatshirt, a scarf, a Carhartt jacket. Gloves that he tucks into the back pocket of his jeans. He’s scowling even before anyone says anything.

“Hey,” he says when he reaches their booth. He’s not really talking to anyone in particular. “Pass me one of those beers.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Web says. Lieb blinks and then looks at him like he honestly hadn’t expected Web to be there. “Where the hell have you been?”

Babe passes Lieb a full pint glass and looks around to see if there’s any way for him to crawl out of the booth and away from whatever showdown is about to happen. There isn’t; he’s pinned in by Web on one side, and by Muck and Penkala arm wrestling on the other. Its rotten luck.

“What are you, my keeper now?” Lieb asks. “You kidding me with this?”

“Are you serious?” Web asks. He rolls his eyes but somehow still looks incredulous. 

Lieb shrugs and knocks back a good bit of his beer. He says, “Guess so.”

Web stares at him and Lieb just tops off his pint before heading over to the pool tables, where Malarkey set up shop once he came in. Babe feels beyond awkward, sitting and watching this, so he’s glad when Lieb goes. Not that he wouldn’t rather the two of them have gotten over this dumb argument, but he’d prefer for it not to happen when he’s right there.

“What a fucking asshole,” Web says to no one, or maybe to Babe, and Babe wants to ask, _Then why are you dating him?_ He doesn’t, because it’s none of his business, really, and even if they didn’t get along, maybe the sex is that great. Or was, before this whole fight. Babe doesn’t know.

“He sounds like my ex-girlfriend,” Muck tells them pleasantly. “But I’m sure you two crazy kids will make it.”

Penkala laughs. “Shut up, idiot. That’s not helpful.”

“I honestly don’t know why I hang out with a single one of you,” Web says, and runs his hands through his hair. “I’m headed outside. I’ll be back.”

And then he gets up and goes, and Babe watches the both of them avoid each other for the rest of the night.

“What a bunch of chickens, huh?” Muck says. He’s done arm-wrestling Penkala, and has taken up writing in the condensation on the table with his fingers.

Penkala shrugs. “I try to stay out of it.”

“Stay outta what?” Bill asks, dropping down into the open side of the booth.

“Your mom’s house, but she keeps inviting us over,” Muck says, and Bill let’s out a bark or laughter.

“My ma would never, you dirty fuckin’ rat,” he says, but he looks pleased, like that was a good jab he walked into. That’s how Babe figures he’s drunk. Bill asks him, “You alright, Baberino?”

“I should be asking you that,” Babe says.

“I’m a-okay,” Bill says with a goofy smile. “So good I’m gold.” 

“Yeah?” Babe says. “You let me know when to take you home, alright?”

And that, at least, is something Babe can do, something that he is well practiced in. Bill loves everyone and everyone loves him; usually, when they go bar-hopping, other people are always buying him drinks, always getting him drunk. Babe and Julian would carry him home, one arm over each of their shoulders, although mostly Julian would just fake it and Babe’d end up doing all the work.

He let Julian get away with it, even then. He has no idea why.

“Hey!” Bill says, snapping his fingers in Babe’s face to get his attention. “You’re not takin’ care of me tonight! I’m takin’ care of you!”

“Yeah, I am,” Babe objects. “Just like old days, right? Or else Lip’ll throw you out back with the trash when he closes up for the night.”

Bill laughs again. Babe likes that, that he’s doing that. Laughing.

Web brushes past their table towards the bar. He hears Lieb yelling something after him, although Babe can’t really make it out over all the noise in the place. Lieb raises and drops his arms in frustration before grabbing his glass and heading over the same way, finishing his drink as he moves.

Babe can still see them both by the time Lieb catches up to Web, and he sort of tenses himself for a fight. It wouldn’t be the first time one of the guys had to jump in to break the two of them up, and Babe just doesn’t get it. All they do is antagonize each other; Babe doesn’t understand how they can stand to be together when they don't even seem to like each other.

Over by the bar, Liebgott drunkenly step into Webster’s space, just a hair’s breadth left between their bodies. They're both holding glasses, although Lieb’s is empty, and Babe can’t hear what they’re saying but he can see when Web smiles finally, his eyes crinkling with laughter. Lieb just looks at him—keeps looking and looking—and then he’s smiling, too. Babe doesn’t see that smile on Liebgott often, not soft like that, and then in the dead space between songs, between people yelling and hollering, Babe can just barely hear Lieb say, “I fucking love all the things I hate about you,” before pushing his face into Web’s neck.

Web places his free hand on the small of Liebgott’s back, his fingers spread wide as he pulls Liebgott that last inch closer, and out of left field, Babe misses Gene like crazy.

 

Babe and Bill stumble home later that night, and it almost reminds Babe of how it used to be, Bill stopping in at every bar on the way home for just one more, or to say hi to the bartender or the guys playing pool. Bill knows everyone, and it would always be up to Babe to get him home drunk as a skunk. Only this time, rather than dipping in and out of other bars, Bill keeps casting Babe these sidelong glances the entire way, studying him whenever he thinks Babe’s isn’t looking. So Babe knows it’s coming, knows it with enough time to steel his nerves, but just isn’t entirely sure what _it_ is.

He knows it won’t be good, though. He knows that much.

When they get in the house, the two of them kick their boots off into the pile by the door, and Babe heads to the kitchen for a Gatorade, or maybe just to chug a glass of water. Bill follows him close behind.

“Thanks for coming out tonight,” Bill says honestly. He sounds like the cold sobered him up a little, but not entirely. Maybe that’s why he says what he says. “But you don’t need to do all this for me.”

“So then buy your own fucking beers next time,” Babe responds, deliberately misunderstanding Bill’s point.

Bill’s not having it. He says, “Quit pretendin’ that you’re okay. It’s been a rough couple of months. You don’t have to be okay; you’re grieving. Fuck, I’m grieving.” 

Babe snorts a sarcastic laugh and says, “Fuck, I _wish_ I was grieving,” because what he feels is guilt, and that’s so much worse than grief could ever be.

“I don’t know what that means,” Bill says. He lets out a rush of breath and decides to say, “I don't even know if you're here, half the time, and you're sitting right in front of me.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Babe asks, his turn to be confused.

“Nothing,” Bill says defensively. “It’s just—you remember Crazy Joe McCloskey?”

“Yeah, used to stand outside Delancey’s and just—you know, stare at people.”

“Yeah, well… You get like that sometimes, now,” Bill says tentatively. He’s upset. “It was better for a while, but now you’re doing it again, and you’re my brother and I love you. I don’t know if it’s Julian, or if it’s Gene… I just want you to be okay.”

“Yeah, well,” Babe says. “Don't.”

Bill sniffs and rubs at his nose. He looks away from Babe, over towards fridge and then back. His eyes are glassy as he clears his throat and says, “Now why the fuck would you say that?”

And Babe—Babe doesn't want to talk about it. This is what Babe has been trying to avoid this entire time, Bill crying, and the truth isn't even out yet. Bill doesn't even know, and already he's upset.

It’s all happening so fast, it seems. Babe looks up to the ceiling and then squeezes his eyes shut. His throat is closing up. He whispers, “Don't ask me that.”

“Why would you say that, Babe?” Bill presses again, and Babe looks away because he can’t be looking at Bill. He doesn’t want to tell Bill, doesn’t want Bill to know what he did. Doesn’t want to lose Bill, too, but maybe it’s like Bill said. Maybe Bill’s already lost the both of them. Maybe Babe died in that car with Julian.

Babe’s just so tired of dealing with it on his own. He’s just tired.

“When Julian died,” Babe starts, and then he cuts himself off. The pressure behind his eyes catches him off-guard, and he blinks rapidly and stares at the ceiling until it goes away. “You know I was fine after the crash, not a fuckin’ scratch? Cut up my palm climbing out the broken window, but I was fine.”

Bill nods. He saw how Babe came home alright. He helped Babe keep the stitches clean when Babe was too fucked up to remember to do it himself. He doesn’t say anything.

“The driver’s side door kind of—Julian’s door couldn’t open, because of the other car,” Babe says. “So I tried to pull Julian out my side, and I just—there was a lot of snow, and my hands were shakin’ like crazy, I couldn’t even feel them—”

“You tried,” Bill says. He reaches over and grabs the cloth of Babe’s shirt at the shoulder, and Babe can’t even look at him. Babe just stares blankly at the wall. “Babe, we all know you tried.”

“He was bleedin’, you know?” Babe barrels on. He can see it so perfectly in his mind, even now: Julian, the blood coming out of his mouth, all over his neck. His hand in its fingerless glove at his throat. The way he reached out for Babe. For help. “And he had his hand out, reachin’. And I had my hand out, reachin’ back. And I told him to hold on. I told him to hang on, and that it’d be alright, and to stop moving because every time he did, there was more blood, and I didn’t know what to do.”

 _Julian!_ Babe had yelled. He was just on the other side of the car, but it was miles away. _Stop moving! Okay? Just wait for help! Oh, Christ. Shit. It’s gonna be fine._

The smell of oil, of metal, of smoke. Everything smelled hot. Babe’ll never forget that, how hot everything smelled when it was so cold out.

 _Babe?_ Julian had called back. He sounded scared, but Babe thought that was a good sign, that Julian was talking. Babe was relieved. He might’ve even smiled.

 _Yeah_ , he said. _Yeah, stay with me! Hold on, alright? I’m trying, but—Look at me, okay? Look at me. Stay with me._

And Babe was trying. He was trying to open the car door, trying to get to Julian, trying to stop him from bleeding everywhere until the paramedics got there. Trying to do something, anything that wasn’t just him sitting there alright.

 _Babe?_ Julian asked again, eyes wild. He was breathing heavily. Blood everywhere. He was panicking. Babe was trying not to. His clothes were soaked from the snow, Julian’s with blood. Julian was looking right at him. _Where’s Babe? I need Babe. I don’t want to—_

_Babe’s on his way_ , Babe had told him. He interrupted because he knew what Julian was going to say, and that was that he didn’t want to die without Babe there with him, and Babe couldn’t bear to hear it. What the fuck else could Babe have said to that? He thought it was the right thing. _So stay with me, okay? Babe’s coming. He’s fine. Look at me! You’re gonna be fine. Stay with me until Babe’s here, alright? Babe’s—_

“Babe?” Bill asks, and Babe shakes his head, tries to clear the memory. His face is wet. He doesn’t know when that happened, doesn’t know why he’s telling Bill all of this.

“I told him Babe was on his way, because I thought that would keep him—I thought if he had something to stay awake for... But all that it means is that Julian died thinkin’ he was alone.” Babe presses the heels of his palms hard into his closed eyelids. “Why the fuck should I get what I want when Julian died thinking I wasn’t there for him when he needed me?”

“ _Babe_ ,” Bill says again, and he doesn’t say any of the bullshit that Babe doesn’t want to hear, things like, _It’ll be okay,_ or, _Julian knew you loved him,_ or, _I love you anyway._ Instead, he just reaches forward and pulls Babe to him, hugging him so hard that Babe feels like his bones might crack. Bill’s so warm he’s bordering on hot, and for once, Babe lets himself sink into it. 

He wonders if it’s all the crying or that he finally talked to Bill that leaves him feeling so light. He feels empty, wrung out, but it’s not that bad with Bill hugging him like he is.

“I’m sorry,” Babe says into Bill’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I tried to be there for him.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Bill says, shaking him a little. His voice is cracking. “You shut the fuck up. You _were_ there for him, you idiot. You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

And Babe _does_ have a lot to be sorry about, but at least Bill knows now, how Julian didn't die quickly or painlessly but cold and alone. He knows now how, at least in part, that’s thanks to Babe’s collossal fuck up, and still Bill doesn’t hate him. 

For the first time since Julian died, Babe can exhale. Of course Bill’s the thick and thin type. Somehow, with everything that’s been going on, Babe had forgotten that.

He remembers now.

 

The next morning, Babe makes the conscious decision to do something he’s been avoiding for weeks. He wakes up around ten, showers, and gets dressed. He doesn't put on a suit or tie or anything like that, but he tosses on a pretty decent button-up and jeans that aren't destroyed at the hem. He's never needed to impress Julian and definitely doesn't need to start now, but he's going to show some respect. 

Julian was and is and will always be his brother. Julian deserves a bit of effort.

Babe ducks out of his room and then lets himself into Bill’s, knowing that knocking will get him nowhere and that there’s no way Bill’s awake yet. And he's right—Bill’s asleep, dead to the world, shirtless on his stomach with his hands shoved under the pillow. His mattress is on the floor, no bed frame or anything, so Babe pokes at his shoulder with one socked foot.

“Bill,” he says. “Yo, Bill.”

“Wazzat?” Bill grunts, turning his head to look up at Babe. “Babe? Everythin’ alright?”

Babe’s nodding even though he doubts Bill can see him through his sleepy haze. “Yeah. Yeah, um. I'm actually going to see Julian. At the cemetery? If you wanted…”

Babe doesn't really know how to find the words necessary to convey what he means, so he just sort of shrugs at the end. He means something that's a mix of _Would be nice to have us three together again,_ and, _It’s not closure but something like it,_ and this feeling of his heart sitting too large and too heavy in his chest, but he can't find those words.

“Yeah,” Bill says, voice thick with sleep. “Yeah, gimme five.”

“I'm generous. You can take ten,” Babe says, and then he goes out to the living room where he sits on the couch, bouncing his knee anxiously as he waits.

Bill stumbles out of his room a few minutes later, tossing a sweatshirt on over a plain white t-shirt. He takes a look at Babe once he’s in the living room and say, “You shittin’ me? Brown-noser,” and then heads back to his room to change.

They get out before eleven, and once they reach the cemetery grounds, Bill leads the way. Babe would've figured it out, had he come alone, but he doesn't remember where Julian is off the top of his head. He doesn't really remember much from the funeral, honestly, just how cold it was and how sad he felt, how guilty.

Julian’s plot is a bunch of dirt that still looks fresh, even after all these weeks, probably because it's frozen. Bill and Babe stand at the foot of it, shoulder to shoulder, and look down. Both of them have their hands stuffed into their jacket pockets. For a long moment—nearly five minutes, maybe—neither of them says a thing.

“They say we should wait at least six months before puttin’ in the headstone,” Bill tells him, breaking the silence, “but I think we’re waitin’ almost a year. Let the ground settle when it's not frozen.”

“Yeah,” Babe says. It doesn't make much sense, but that's what comes out. They fall silent again.

Part of Babe wishes there were a headstone, just so other people could see it and know who was buried there, and know that someone cared for Julian enough to have one made. The other part of him never wants to see Julian’s headstone, both because it would make everything a little too real, and because nothing written on it would be able to sum Julian up. _Beloved son? Best friend? Brother?_ Julian was more than that. _Is_ more than that.

“Hey, remember when—” Bill starts, and then he stops himself. He sniffs, and when Babe glances over, he’s smiling despite running a finger under his nose. “Remember when he first moved in, how he had that accent? We knew he was an out-of-towner the second he opened his mouth.”

“He said _yonder way,_ ” Babe says, and surprises even himself when he lets out a snort.

Bill huffs a laugh, too, and says, “ _Oh, I'm fixin’ to go over yonder way._ We were like, what the fuck are you talkin’ about?”

“What language is that?” Babe agrees. Julian confused them so much, when they were kids, all the crazy things he knew—what a ten-point buck was, or every Daytona 500 winner for the past twenty years—and all the obvious things he couldn't figure out—how to navigate the SEPTA, or why Tasty Kakes were such a big deal. He’d make fun of them when they all grew up, even though he was as much a Philadelphian as them by that point. He always said he was an Alabamian first, wore that distinction like a badge of honor. 

_Wooder ice? It's pronounced_ water _ice, and it's Italian ice, anyway!_ he complained once.

 _Which one of us is the Italian, here?_ Bill had asked in response.

 _Should be me, you're so bad at it,_ Julian told him. They were at the Jersey Shore, and Babe dunked him on Bill’s behalf.

“He was such a little shit,” Babe says, smiling slightly. He wonders if Bill’s remembering the same things as Babe, or if Bill’s remembering all the things Babe’s already forgotten.

“As dirty a rat as they come,” Bill agrees fondly, the biggest of compliments coming from him.

“I just miss him so fuckin’ much,” Babe admits, and he wills his eyes to stop welling up. He swallows thickly.

“I know ya do,” Bill says. He tosses an arm around Babe’s shoulders. “‘Cuz I do, too.”

Babe nods, maybe to himself or maybe to Bill. He doesn't know.

They stand there for another long while, until eventually Bill nudges Babe and says, “I’m gonna go wait by the gates.”

“Alright,” Babe says, and he takes it to mean that Bill is ready to go whenever Babe is, although there’s no rush. Maybe he just thinks Babe needs some time alone with Julian. 

Once he _is_ alone, he thinks about saying to the dirt, _Hey, JJ_ , or maybe, _Sorry for back there_ , but he doesn't. Instead, he clears his throat and looks around the cemetery. There’s a well-manicured copse of trees not far away, contained by a circle of large gardening rocks. Babe trudges on over through the cold grass and picks one up. It’s freezing cold, and he carries it back over to Julian’s grave.

He places it right at the top, right where a headstone would be, just to mark his place. Julian’s place.

“Later, buddy,” Babe says to him, and then heads to go meet Bill.

 

“Whatchu up to the rest of the day?” Bill asks once they’re home, and Babe shrugs.

“Probably heading to Currahee, finishing up my re-enrollment stuff. You?” Babe asks.

“Not much. Work out, maybe,” Bill says. “But hey, you’ll be by Rocket Fizz?” That's a candy store, not exactly anywhere near where Babe’ll be, except for how it’s in the same direction.

“Not really…”

“Closer than me, though,” Bill says. “If you swing in and grab me some Zotz and a box of Hot Tamales, I'll owe ya.”

“Hot Tamales are nasty,” Babe says. “I can't be seen buying those.”

“But they don’t sell Zotz nowhere else.”

“What a shame.”

Bill shoves him. “Get outta here,” he says, and the way they’re both smiling, it's a given that Babe’ll go out of his way to get there.

At Currahee, Babe grabs his usual small coffee and then makes it drinkable by adding a pound of cream and sugar. He doesn't know anyone there, which is strange, because he’s sort of come to know everyone. Instead, the barista is a guy named Floyd, whose nametag announces, _Hi! I’m new!_ and who is wearing a Mt. Shasta sweatshirt underneath his apron. He smiles apologetically when he tells Babe that Harry has the day off, even though Babe was just asking out of idle curiosity.

Sitting at the table and finally— _finally_ —spreading his re-enrollment paperwork out over the table, Babe rests his head on his open palm and reads over the instructions. The packet is pretty thick, which has made Babe anxious every time he’s attempted to do it, but as it turns out, Babe doesn’t even _have_ to re-enroll. According to the paperwork, Babe hasn’t even technically dropped from degree status this semester; he’s just on something called a leave of absence.

Flipping through the pages, Babe stops when he finds the section that says _Return From Leave of Absence_. It’s exactly one page long. _One_ page. All it asks for is his name, his student i.d., his permanent address, and his major. Babe puts down the date he’s coming back as the start of the next semester, and that’s it. Done.

It takes _two_ minutes. Babe’s stunned.

“What the fuck,” he says to himself. He’s been putting this off for ages. He feels like an idiot.

“Sorry?” Floyd’s clearing mugs that were left behind on a nearby table, looking a little surprised.

“Nothing,” Babe says. “Sorry. And thanks for the coffee.” And then he packs his stuff back up and heads out.

 _Two minutes_. Unbelievable. 

Leaving Currahee, Babe walks in the opposite direction from their apartment and heads towards Rocket Fizz. It’s kind of a longer walk than he’d normally like, but he’s in the mood for it today, after having seen Julian and filled out his paperwork and everything. It feels like a good day. He lifts his face up to the sunshine, warm despite how cold it is out, and takes a deep breath.

At Rocket Fizz, Babe wanders the aisles and grabs Bill’s stuff. The store is exactly what anyone would expect out of a candy store: bright and busy, a lot going on and a lot to look at. Babe sort of hates it for how over-the-top it is, but the cool thing that it’s got going for it is that it has a whole bunch of old candies you can’t really find anywhere else, things like Bit-O-Honey, Abba Zaba, and BB Bats. Things his grandfather grew up on. Babe grabs a few on impulse, just to try. They’ve got a bit of everything he could ever want.

Which, of course, means it really shouldn’t surprise Babe when he’s heading to the register and walks past a small section of Roman Candy Gourmet Taffy. It stops him dead in his tracks.

Babe reaches out and picks a pack up. They look different than what he had pictured. He had thought they’d be like the kind of taffy he gets at the shore, short little rolls like a Tootsie Roll, but these are long and thin, like a pencil, and wrapped in plain white wax paper. Without the label on the bag, Babe wouldn’t have even known what they were.

Looking at them, he thinks of Gene and the way he had smiled, standing in the middle of Franklin Square, as he said, _The strawberry reminds me of home._ He thinks of Gene’s nose, red from the cold, but how his hands were somehow warm when they laced their fingers together. Babe had kissed him and he tasted like fudge.

There’s this quote Julian used to say all the time. Babe doesn’t remember who said it first, although Julian would tell him each time, but he’d say, _The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up_. Mostly he’d quote it when he wanted something, like the last fudge pop or the first ride on Luz’s secondhand Vespa, but Babe thinks about it anyway. Thinks about how Gene would look if Babe gave him some Roman Candy.

Babe’s never going to see Gene again, but he still tosses a pack of the taffy on the counter as he checks out.

 

A few days later, after Babe comes back from his first run in weeks, the cold air still burning his lungs, Bill ambushes him in the doorway.

“Saw your boy today,” he says casually, and he looks like a moron, leaning against the hallway wall and eating an apple.

“Who?” Babe asks. He doesn't have a boy. He had Julian, and then he had Gene, and now he has no one. He flexes his fingers in the warmth of their apartment and strips off his sweaty hoodie.

“ _Gene_ ,” Bill says. “I saw him today when I was walking to Fran’s.”

“Oh,” Babe says. The thought hits him like a bag of bricks, and there’s a million things Babe wants to ask: _Is he doing okay? How did he look? Did he say anything? Did he ask about me?_ But of course he doesn’t say any of these things. He just repeats, “Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” Bill says. He takes another bite of his apple, the crunch loud in their otherwise quiet apartment.

“Okay. Thanks for telling me?” Babe doesn’t know what Bill wants, so he wipes sweat off his forehead with the hoodie in his hands and starts heading back towards his bedroom.

“Yo! Where the fuck are you going?” Bill asks. He points at one of the kitchen chairs. “Sit. I ain’t done.”

“I hadn’t really realized you even started,” Babe says like an asshole, because while it’s true, and he _didn’t_ know that they were in the middle of a conversation, he also doesn’t really want to be talking about Gene. He still likes Gene; Bill knows that, and he’s a dick for bringing Gene up like this.

Bill just levels him with an even stare until Babe gives in and drops himself down onto one of the chairs tucked under the kitchen table.

“As I was sayin’,” Bill stresses again, “I ran into Gene, and imagine my surprise when he asks how you are and I say, _None of your fuckin’ business considerin’ you broke up with him_ , and _he_ says that ain’t how it happened.” Babe feels his mouth drop open a little in surprise, and Bill barrels on, “Yeah, me too. Me fuckin’ too, Babe! You told me _he_ broke up with _you_!”

“No, I didn’t!” Babe defends.

“Yeah, you said that you—”

“No, I know—I know what I said,” Babe tells him. “But I didn’t tell you he broke up with me. What does it even matter?”

Bill rolls his eyes and tosses his apple in the direction of the trash can. It hits the lid, but doesn’t swing the lid enough for the core to drop in. Instead, the apple falls instead to the floor, and Bill ignores it. “Look, I don’t care anymore. You broke up with him, he broke up with you, whatever. But what the fuck is goin’ on in your head that you gotta deal with everything yourself, huh? I thought we were past this.”

“We _are_ ,” Babe says. “To be fair, this happened way before you and I talked about everything.”

Bill makes a face like, _Yeah, pull the other one_ , and the familiarity behind that gesture makes Babe’s chest feel tight. He looks at Bill and then looks over Bill’s shoulder, at the photos stuck to the fridge, at all their dumb magnets. There’s a jar of peanut butter out on the counter, the handle of the knife sticking out acting as a sign that Bill was probably eating it before Babe got home. 

Babe can’t even look at him, because he _was_ trying to be better—was _getting_ better, too, he thinks. He just doesn’t want to think about _this_. 

“He was always jokin’ that he’d die a virgin,” Babe says, a non sequitur. He knows he doesn’t need to explain himself, so he doesn’t.

“Babe,” Bill says. He sounds frustrated, maybe a little defeated. “You can’t let that—he’d _want_ you to—” 

“No, I know,” Babe interrupts, and he does. He _does_ know. No way Julian would want Babe doing all this, feeling guilty and breaking up with Gene and all that. Babe’s not doing it because _Julian_ would want him to; Babe’s doing it because _he_ wants to, because that’s what he thinks he _should_ do.

“You know what? Fuck you,” Bill says. He’s suddenly angry, and Babe wasn’t expecting that.

“What the fuck did I do?” he asks defensively. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“Nothing to do with me? Nothing to _do with me_? Are you _kidding_?”

Babe looks at him and feels at a loss. He shrugs, unsure. “No. It’s got—no.”

Bill laughs, the kind of laugh that’s mostly just air, and he shakes his head. He lets himself fall back so that he’s leaning against the kitchen counters, and presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. He stays like that for long enough that Babe doesn’t know what to do.

“I’m sor—”

“Breaking news, Babe: nobody’s perfect. Nobody’s got their life together. Everyone’s just tryin’ to be happy while they can be. So why the fuck won't you let yourself be happy?”

Babe shrugs again, even though he knows the answer. “I’m a little fucked up,” he says.

And that’s the real problem, right there. He’s fucked up. Nothing seems fair, after Julian.

“You and the rest of the world,” Bill says, looking right at him. “I love Julian. I fuckin’ love him, and I’ll miss him for the rest of my life, but you can’t do this shit to yourself, and you can’t do this shit to me, either. And you _sure_ _as hell_ can’t do this shit to Julian.”

“Well, Julian’s not here anymore,” Babe points out, because that’s his point.

“Man,” Bill says sadly. “That’s my point.”

 

Babe doesn’t see Bill for the rest of the day. He goes into the bathroom and then he stands in the shower for a long time, and by the time he makes it out, Bill’s gone. He doesn’t come home that night, and isn’t there in the morning, so Babe figures he went to Fran’s. Bill used to go to Fran’s a lot, although he hasn’t in a long time.

Babe wonders if that’s another thing he needs to feel bad about. 

He opens his phone to send Bill a text, but he doesn’t even know what to say, so he sends nothing. He figures they’ll wait it out, same as they’ve always done, and eventually they’ll both wake up no longer mad. Until then, Babe’ll do what he’s got to do to fix it and fix himself. To show that at least he’s _trying_ , because he is.

Still in his pajamas, Babe grabs his leave of absence paperwork and shuffles out to the kitchen. They have a junk drawer that they keep menus and important receipts in, but they’ve also got a couple envelopes and a book of stamps crammed in there, too, and Babe rummages around until he finds them. He wishes he could say that he addresses the envelope carefully once he’s got it stuffed, but he doesn’t; his handwriting is shit and out of practice, and he puts the stamp on upside down.

Babe calls his ma after that, because if he’s been hard for Bill to deal with, he can only imagine how hard he’s been for his ma. He hardly called her in weeks, just left the hospital and _see ya._

“Hi, honey,” she answers, same as always, like she’s not holding grudges, and Babe smiles.

“Hey, Ma,” he says. “Guess what I’m doin’ right now.”

“Oh jeez,” she says. “I just finished vacuuming, so you are… just waking up.”

Babe grabs his keys, just in case, as he heads out his front door. “Heading to the mailbox to send out the paperwork I need to start up again next semester.”

“What?” she says. It’s not a question, and she sounds so excited. “ _What?_ Oh, Babe!”

“Just thought you might wanna know,” Babe tells her, feeling vaguely pleased until he hears that she’s crying. “Ma? What’s wrong?”

“ _Nothing_ ,” she stresses, her voice watery. “I’m just happy.”

Babe’s made it to the mailboxes by then, and he drops his letter in the slot without even thinking about it. He’s a little preoccupied. 

“Sorry,” Babe says honestly. He tugs at the collar of his t-shirt and tries to think of all the things he’d say if he weren’t standing in the middle of the hallway.

“No, no,” she says. “You have nothing to be sorry about. I just hated seeing you pull away from everything.”

“Well, I was...” Babe says. He doesn’t really know how to finish the thought, because everything he _was_ he still sort of thinks he _is_. 

“I know, honey.” And of course she does. She’s his ma, and was as good as a second ma for Julian, too. If anyone comes close to knowing what he and Bill are feeling, it’s probably her.

“I, uh. I went to the cemetery the other day. With Bill.”

“It’s a nice plot, right by all those trees,” she says, sniffling, and he can picture her wiping carefully at her eyes to not smudge her makeup. “Is Billy doing alright?” 

“I think so,” he tells her, letting himself back into his apartment. He wants to be honest, maybe to tell her that they got in a fight last night, but that’s just not in Babe’s nature, to share those kinds of things, and so he leaves it out.

“Just between us, Augusta is worried sick about him. Is he—I know it’s hard, losing Julian, but has he said something to you about Frances, or—?”

“No,” Babe interrupts. His stomach feels like lead. “He and Fran are still good. It’s just weird without Julian. He’s fine, though. We’ll be fine.” 

It’s a little bit of a lie, though. If Babe were braver or more honest, he’d say that it’s not Julian, and it’s not Fran, but it’s _him_ , it’s _Babe_ that’s dragging Bill down, and over the dumbest of things.

“I don’t doubt it,” his ma says. “You two have always been thick as thieves. I’m so glad you have each other.”

“Yeah,” Babe says, thinking of everything Bill’s done for him, and all the nothing Babe’s done in return. All Bill wants is for Babe to be fucking happy, and to date the guy that he likes. And Babe’s being stubborn, saying no to that? What the fuck is wrong with him? “No, yeah, me too.”

“He was always putting you first, growing up,” she recalls, and he can hear the smile in her voice. “Always minding other people’s business just so he could mind yours. Remember that?”

Babe doesn’t, not really, just remembers it like an instinct, Bill taking care of him and, when he was able to, him taking care of Bill. That’s just how they were, and how they are, and how they’re always going to be. Just because it’s skewed a little one way right now doesn’t mean Babe doesn’t pull his share. It just means Babe needs some time. He thinks that’s alright, considering.

All Babe wants is for Bill to be happy, too. That’s why he didn’t tell Bill anything at first, and now they’re stuck in this dumb feedback loop of wanting each other to be happy. If Bill had dropped everything the way Babe had, Babe probably would’ve flipped his lid. 

Babe’s an idiot, if he can make Bill happy by making himself happy, and he doesn’t do it.

“I worry so much about the both of you,” his ma admits and then changes the subject to Jack, and how he’s bored stiff without anyone to keep him company until the high school lets out and Jimmy gets home. They’ve already broken one of her lamps rough housing, she tells him.

His ma carries most of the conversation, talking about family and the holidays. It’s not that Babe’s not talkative, because he is sometimes, but he never really knows what to say over the phone. He gets a little awkward about it, and when he had first started dating Doris, Bill and Julian wrote down a dozen topics Babe could talk about when she called. It was all dumb stuff—their math exam, his detention with Mr. Sobel for wearing a hat in the classroom, whatever movies were coming out that week—but it worked. Or it did, anyway, until things went south.

“Anyway. Listen to me talk your ear off!” she laughs. “Did you ask Joe about coming over?”

It takes Babe a second, and then he remembers. “No, I forgot.”

“Okay, well, next time you see him,” she says, and Babe nods even though she can’t see it. And then, after a pause of silence between the two of them, she says, “Babe?”

“Yeah?” 

“I love you, and I’m proud of you for going back to school.”

“Love you too, Ma,” Babe says, and doesn’t touch the back half of that

“You let me know if either of you needs anything, alright?” she says, and then doesn’t let him get a word in edgewise before she’s laughing to herself and adding, “I guess I’m just a little overprotective of you. But I’m your family; I’m supposed to be.”

Babe’s reminded of Bill, and of Gene. 

He’s heard that one before.

 

Babe gets dressed and because he figures turnabout is fair play, he ambushes Bill outside his classroom. He knows Bill’s schedule more or less by heart—or knows the buildings he’s at, anyway—and so Babe sits on a cold bench outside, bouncing his knee and trying to play Pac-Man on his phone with his frozen fingers.

He’s not entirely sure how this is going to go. He doesn't really want to say he’s sorry, because he's not sure that he is, not for what he did, because he really believed it was the best thing to do at the time. But he _is_ sorry for all the shit that’s caused for Bill. That he is sorry for.

Eventually, Babe looks up and there Bill is, jogging down the front steps of the building and smacking his gum like a mannerless idiot. Babe waves to get his attention.

“Yo,” he hollers. “Bill!”

“Yowza!” Bill hollers back, smiling wide until suddenly he's not anymore. As soon as he gets to Babe, he’s wide-eyed and asking, “What happened? What's wrong?”

“Nothin’,” Babe says immediately, and he can see Bill exhale.

“Oh,” he says. Then, “Hey, sorry about—well, sorta—”

“Yeah, me too,” Babe says. “Sorta.” 

Bill rolls his eyes and looks around. He says, “Jeez, these people must think I'm no good, hangin’ out with a guy with a black eye.”

“It's mostly gone,” Babe says, touching his eye socket gingerly. It’s only half true; the cut has scabbed over, and even though there’s no more bruising on his eyelid, he’s still pretty black and blue below the eye.

“S’okay,” Bill says with a shrug. “You don't need a black eye for me to know you're trouble.”

“Funny,” Babe says, and then he takes a deep breath. “So hey, um. I just wanted to say that I know I’ve driven you crazy and all, but I appreciate it. You bein’ there.”

Bill sniffs, but when Babe looks at him, his eyes are clear. Bill says, “You could just say that I'm right, ya know. I like those words more than an apology.”

“Who’s apologizing?” Babe asks, even though he is. If he lets Bill get away with too much now, he’ll be impossible later on.

“Don't irrigate me,” Bill says, a crooked smile on his face. “In front of all these people? How dare you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Babe says.

“So you gonna talk to your doctor or what?”

“My doctor?” Babe asks. “About what, my eye?”

“No, moron,” Bill says, swatting at Babe’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “Gene.”

“Oh.” Babe had thought about it, but only from the standpoint of what he’d do if he hadn't already messed it up. “I dunno, I was kinda an asshole.”

“At least you know it,” Bill says. “Fran likes it when I start off apologies with _I’m an asshole_.”

“That's one way to do it.”

“You should, though. Try to, at least.” He waits until Babe nods and then says, “I'm fuckin’ sick of only double datin’ Fran’s friends, but who else do I got? Web and Liebgott? Can you imagine?”

“Fran’s tough,” Babe says, but he's joking now. He heard what Bill had to say, and Bill knows it. “She can handle it.”

“It's not Fran that I'm worried about.”

Babe laughs. The two of them stand there smiling at each other like idiots, Babe rocking forward on his toes and Bill smacking his gum, his thumbs looped in the straps of his backpack. Bill rolls his eyes and so Babe rolls his back, and then Bill rolls his eyes again. 

“C’mere, ya dirty rat,” he says, and he opens his arms for a hug, pulls Babe in. Bill’s always been one for hugs, and Babe’s never been, but he lets Bill pull him in anyway, leaving his arms hanging down in defiance.

“Who’s irrigatin’ who?” he asks, his face mashed into Bill’s shoulder.

“Still you irrigatin’ me,” Bill says, squeezing the air out of Babe’s lungs. “My whole damn life.”

“My bad.”

“Ah, what the hell?” Bill says, pulling Babe in tight one last time before letting him go. “I'm used to it.”

 

Babe talks himself out of going to see Gene that night, and instead gears up to go the following afternoon. Bill talks him through it after a shitty night’s sleep, as he’s putting on sneakers. It's almost as if Babe were a boxer and Bill were his corner man.

“Look at you!” Bill says. “You are a fuckin’ _specimen_. He’d have to be an idiot to say no to you.”

“Yeah, well, I had to be an idiot to say no to him, and I still did it,” Babe says.

“And now you're changing your mind,” Bill points out. “It's fine. It’ll be _fine_. Get in there, wow him with your special little love presents—”

“Would you stop calling them that?”

“—then fuck him ‘til he forgets you broke up with him. Bing, bang, boom. Happily ever after.”

“Jesus Christ,” Babe says, grabbing his jacket and the plastic bag holding Gene’s Roman Candy and the vertebra pen holder. “Don't quit your day job.”

“Gotta get one first,” Bill says, and Babe doesn't bother responding as he heads out the door.

He takes the long way to Gene’s, in part because he’s chickenshit and in part because a cheesesteak really does sound good. Only then he gets there and he thinks, well, if Bill’s right… So he gets two, both whiz wit, and continues on to Gene’s.

He’s so amped up by the time he gets there that he doesn't even feel the cold, and is just totally zeroed in on his fist and the sound it makes knocking on Gene’s door.

“I’m sorry,” Babe blurts out, the second Gene opens up. Gene looks ruffled from sleep, like he just woke up from a nap, and Babe shoves the plastic bag at him while trying to remember words.

Gene takes the bag and wordlessly opens it by the handles to look inside. His eyebrows are furrowed in confusion. He looks back up. He looks tired, and Babe hopes that’s because of med school and not because of him. Babe wonders what he’s going to say. 

“What happened to your eye?”

Whatever Babe had expected, it wasn’t that.

“Nothing,” Babe says, and then corrects himself, “I got in a fight. It’s fine. That’s not why I’m here.”

“Okay…?”

“That’s, um,” Babe says, pointing at the plastic bag. He doesn’t really know how to say, _I’m a fuck-up and I’m fucked up, but I want you to be with me anyway_. “I’m trying to say I’m sorry. I got you strawberry Roman Candy and a lumbar vertebra pen holder, and I’m not trying to bribe you, I just honestly saw them and thought of you. I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“Oh,” Gene says. He looks uncertain, and Babe wonders if it was a dumb idea to come.

“And I got two cheesesteaks. I figured we could… But we don’t have to. You could just… have both, and I could go home. I should probably—”

“Edward,” Gene interrupts. He’s smiling softly. “Shut up and come inside.”

And Babe wants to— _shit_ , does he want to—but it’s not fair to either of them if Babe takes the easy way out, so Babe stays where he is standing on the doormat and puts it all out in the open, everything that he probably should’ve said a long time ago. He says, “I was in a car accident a few weeks ago. My best friend died and all I got was whiplash. I’m still kinda messed up from it, and I might take it out on you, even though I don’t mean to.”

“Thank you for telling me. I’m sorry to hear about your friend,” Gene says. Obviously, he knew about Julian, but Babe never actually _told_ him before. Babe’s never actually told anyone before. He hopes the gesture counts for something. “Now come inside before you freeze. I’m cold just lookin’ at you.”

Babe stays where he is for just a beat longer, vaguely surprised that his apology actually worked without _I’m an asshole_ , but then he shakes himself out of it and ducks around Gene and into the apartment. It’s warm inside, and Babe feels his cheeks flush just from the temperature change. He’s about to bend down to unlace his boots, stop himself from dragging snow all over the place, but then Gene’s right there in front of him, looking at Babe like he can't believe it.

There’s a foot of space between their bodies that Babe wants him to close. 

“I was startin’ to think you weren’t coming back, Babe,” Gene admits quietly, and then he places one hand on the side of Babe’s face. He looks at Babe for a long time after that, just looking, his thumb moving back and forth along Babe’s unbruised cheekbone. Then he slides his hand around the back of Babe’s neck and kisses him, soft and tentative at first until Babe kisses back. Once he does, it’s almost like Gene realizes Babe’s actually there, that this is actually happening, and he kisses Babe with tongue and teeth, nothing soft or tentative about it. Gene kisses like he might be able to love Babe back, like he was angry Babe left in the first place.

Babe breaks away before pressing back in for another quick kiss and pulling away again. It’s not easy; Gene’s hands have found their way under his shirt.

“Hey. Hey, Gene,” he breathes, head turned to the side. Gene trails his lips over Babe’s jawline, scrapes his teeth over Babe’s skin.

“Hm?” Gene’s hands ghost over the skin of Babe’s stomach, and his muscles jump because of it.

“You called me Babe,” he says. 

Gene pulls back—really, the opposite of what Babe wants—and asks, “I did?”

“Yeah,” Babe tells him. He’s gloating. It feels like he’s gloating.

“I guess I did,” Gene admits, and he’s smiling.

Babe’s smiling, too. He mimics Gene’s accent. “ _Babe_.”

“ _Edward_. Did you have someone look at it?” Gene asks, and it takes Babe a second to understand what he means. Gene runs one thumb lightly, lightly down the edge of Babe’s bruise.

“Look, that’s really not the point—”

Gene steps back and takes his other hand out from underneath Babe’s shirt. They’re no longer touching. He says, “C’mon. Kitchen. Let’s take a look.”

And Babe thinks—fuck, Babe doesn’t know what to think. Babe wants to kiss Gene some more and touch him all over, make him feel as good as he always makes Babe feel. Babe loves him. Babe broke up with him and still Gene just wants to make sure he’s okay. 

Babe’s starting to think he might be.

 

“Are we gonna talk about it?” Babe asks once they're in Gene’s room. Gene had declared Babe’s eye to be alright, which Babe could've told him right from the get-go, and they wasted no time after that. Babe’s already got his shirt off, and his fingers are tucked between the waistbands of Gene’s pants and his briefs.

“Are you planin’ to disappear again?” Gene asks. He tosses Babe’s shirt aside and places his hands on Babe’s hips.

“No,” Babe says.

“Then we’re good,” Gene tells him, and kisses Babe again, letting his hands move up Babe’s waist to his chest. Gene’s thumbs swipe idly along Babe’s nipples until they’re hard.

“Oh,” Babe says dumbly. “Okay, cool,” and he uses both hands to tug up the hem of Gene’s shirt, and then make quick work of his pants.

As soon as they’re both naked, Babe walks Gene backwards and presses him down onto the mattress, the two of them kissing and touching the entire time. 

“Yeah?” Babe asks, and he’s pretty sure he knows what Gene’s going to say, because Gene’s touching him back just as much, but Babe asks anyways.

“Yeah,” Gene says. “Yes.” He runs his fingers through Babe’s hair as they kiss, and then drags his blunt fingernails down Babe’s scalp, down the back of his neck and between his shoulderblades. 

It would be embarrassing how quickly Babe goes from zero to turned on, but Gene’s hard, too, and so Babe can’t bring himself to care, even as he lets out a gasp when their hips fit together.

Babe pulls Gene closer with one hand on Gene’s side and the other on his thigh. He can’t get enough of Gene, of Gene’s pale skin and the few moles on his shoulder, his hips. He remembers the first time they got together, how quickly everything happened, how he didn’t take the time to savor it. Babe doesn’t want this time to ever end, wants to see his fingers dimpling the skin of Gene’s thighs every time he closes his eyes.

He kisses Gene, and bites down on Gene’s lip just thinking about it, about his hands on Gene’s body and his come on Gene’s skin.

Babe licks and bites his way down Gene’s chest. Gene keeps making these noises each time Babe uses his teeth, and Babe loves it, the way Gene sounds and how he sounds that way because of Babe. He doesn’t even think Gene realizes what he’s doing.

Eventually, Babe presses an open-mouthed kiss into the dip of Gene’s hip. He looks up the plane of Gene’s body, past the hair on his lower stomach, past the angles of his collarbones, and sees Gene straining his neck to look back down at him.

Gene’s pupils are blown and he says, “Don’t you want to—”

“Probably, yeah,” Babe says. “But later. Can I—?”

“Yeah,” Gene breathes, and Babe kisses Gene’s hip one more time before wrapping his fingers around the length of Gene’s cock. Gene’s whole body twitches. “Edward, c’mon.” 

“I’m about to suck you off and you still can’t call me Babe?” he jokes, and Gene lets out a noise like he’s dying, like he can’t wait any longer.

“Babe then, whatever,” he says, and his hips buck against the air. “ _Merde_ , Babe, come on.”

And later—another day, maybe—Babe’ll make him beg for it, make him say Babe’s name like that again and again, breathy and needy and Babe _, Babe_ , but for now, Babe just leans down and takes Gene’s length in his mouth, all of it, as much as he can, and uses his fingers to cover the rest of what his mouth can’t.

Gene’s hands scramble at the tops of Babe’s shoulders, his fingers eventually finding their way into the hair at the back of Babe’s head, and any other time it would be funny how nice, polite Gene Roe is pressing Babe down onto his cock. But it’s not any other time, it’s now, and Babe’s got Gene in his mouth, and Gene’s panting, making all sorts of quiet noises in the back of his throat, and so instead of making Babe laugh, it just turns him on more.

Babe can’t wait—doesn’t want to wait—and so he reaches down and takes himself in hand, and jerks himself off at the same rate as he sucks Gene, lets his hips rock in time with Gene’s despite their distance. 

“Babe,” Gene says again. “Oh, fuck— _Babe_.”

Babe almost comes then, just from Gene cursing in English, just from Gene saying his name and making those sounds. He looks up and Gene’s whole chest is flushed red, and Gene’s still propped up on one elbow, still straining his neck to look down at Babe.

Babe looks right back at him and then suddenly, just as Gene’s fingers tighten in Babe’s hair, Gene’s entire face tenses and then slackens. His mouth drops open and he grunts, the noise sounding like it’s being dragged out of him, and he spills his come down Babe’s throat.

Babe swallows what he can, but some of it escapes from between his lips and drips down his chin.

It’s crazy, how fast he feels his own orgasm build in the base of his spine after that. It’s crazy, what Gene does to him. 

Babe lets Gene’s cock slip from his mouth, and then Gene reaches out, uses the curve of his thumb to catch the come on Babe’s chin. He presses his thumb into Babe’s mouth, filling up the space his cock used to. Babe runs the flat of his tongue over whatever bit of Gene’s fingers he can, and when he does, Gene’s hips buck up instinctively again, despite his cock lying soft and spent on his stomach. 

Looking at him like that, Babe comes like a freight train, hard and fast, and unexpectedly so. He grunts and spills out into his own hand, and his eyes slip shut until he remembers to open them, to look at Gene the whole time.

Gene just watches him right back, his mouth slightly open and his eyes wide. His chest is heaving as he breathes heavily, and Babe can’t believe it. Can’t believe that Gene took him back.

When he finally collapses on top of Gene, everything goes silent. All Babe can hear is his breathing and Gene’s breathing, and the rustle of the bedsheets whenever they make any movement. He stays where he is for a while longer, half on top of Gene and with a mess of his come everywhere, too lazy to move.

He likes Gene so much he feels crazy with it.

“Good?” he asks, and Gene smiles lazily.

“ _Mais oui_ ,” Gene says, and Babe huffs a laugh into the side of his neck.

“Gonna just assume that’s a good thing,” he says.

“It’s a good thing,” Gene says, and he runs his fingertips idly down the side of Babe’s body.

A few minutes later, Gene slides out from underneath Babe and disappears for a second, coming back to the bedroom with a damp washcloth. Babe watches him as he cleans himself, the bit of Babe’s come that landed on his skin, and then he tosses the towel to Babe. Babe catches it and cleans off his hand, but gets distracted from doing anything else with it because he’s watching Gene pull back on his briefs.

“Gotta do everything myself,” Gene tsks when he’s sliding back into bed, wriggling his body back underneath Babe’s. He takes the cloth in hand and runs it blindly over Babe’s stomach, over his soft cock and the insides of his thighs. Anywhere he can reach, just because he can reach it. When he’s done, he tosses the towel aside.

“Thanks,” Babe says. And then, after a few minutes of silence, of the two of them just lying pressed together, he says, “I wish you could've met him.” 

It comes out of nowhere. He wasn’t even thinking about Julian at all, and that’s the honest truth.

“Me too,” Gene says, and Babe imagines he can feel Gene’s chest rumble as he talks. “You can tell me about him, if you want.”

“Yeah?” Babe asks. “Maybe I will. Tell you all about him ‘til you get sick of us both.”

“It’s alright, I'm trainin’ to be a doctor,” Gene tells him, and it startles a loud laugh out of Babe.

“Ugh,” he groans, still laughing. “That was terrible. Don't ever make another joke again.”

“Got you laughing, didn't it?” Gene asks, smiling small and crooked, and it really was a terrible joke—wasn't at all funny—but Babe can't stop laughing now every time he makes eye contact with Gene. He covers Gene’s eyes with his hands.

“I can't even look at you,” he says, and kisses Gene anyway.

Later, when they make it out of bed, Gene tosses Babe his boxer shorts and the two of them walk mostly naked to the kitchen for some water.

“Wouldn't want to be Spina, walkin’ in right now,” Babe comments, and Gene huffs out a laugh.

“Nah, he went home. He’s from here, but his family just moved out to Fort Worth. So he went there,” Gene says.

“Oh,” Babe says. “What about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like… Are you going home? Back to Louisiana?” Babe asks, and he’s not entirely sure what he’s doing, just knows that he's doing it without thinking it through in the least.

Gene shakes his head. “C’mon, Edward. You know I live in the library.” He smiles like it's a joke, and he probably means it as one, although it’s true.

“Oh, right,” Babe says, rolling his eyes, and then he looks down, runs a finger around the rim of his water glass. “I mean, I know it's soon and everything, so it's cool if you don't want to, but you could—I mean, you're more than welcome over at mine. Christmas dinner, whenever dinner. Meet my sister and my idiot brothers.”

Gene smiles, and Babe knows the answer before he even hears it.

“Yeah, that’d be real nice,” he says, and he keeps smiling at Babe, and Babe keeps smiling right back.

 

They’re lazy for the rest of the day. Gene tries to study and Babe tries to let him, sitting at the opposite end of the couch and reading one of Spina’s magazines, but Babe’s not sure how much Gene actually gets done. Neither of them bothered to get dressed, and whenever the mood strikes, Babe leans over to kiss Gene’s shoulder, his jaw, just because he can. Gene smiles at him every now and again, too, small and sidelong, like he doesn't want Babe to see.

As it gets later, they start thinking about what to do for dinner, and Gene asks Babe if he'll stay the night.

“Well, if dinner’s involved…” Babe says, and Gene softly pinches the skin behind Babe’s ankle bone.

They end up ordering Thai food from the place Renee had mentioned, just because it's what’s closest, and neither of them are picky. Gene pulls the menu up on his phone, and they look over it together, with Babe’s chin hooked over Gene’s shoulder.

“Know what you want?” Gene asks.

“Just pad Thai, I guess,” Babe says. He’s eaten Thai food before, but not with any sort of regularity. He knows enough to know that he likes the noodles, but not enough to know the difference between the curries. “What’re you getting?”

“Green curry,” Gene says. “I’ll get it mild, though, so you can have some.”

“Why? Is it spicy normally?” Babe asks, and for some reason, Gene laughs. 

“For you, probably, yeah,” Gene says. “If you thought that gumbo from before was spicy—”

“It was _spicy_ , spicy,” Babe defends himself, as if that’s what it said on the menu.

“—then you’ll probably find this spicy, too,” Gene finishes. His face is an open book as he smiles at Babe. “And I have to teach you more Cajun slang than that.”

“Gettin’ sick of that one?” 

“From you? No,” Gene says honestly. And a beat later, “I have a plan.”

Babe flops back down to his side of the couch and leaves his feet in Gene’s lap. He rolls his eyes and waves his hand as if to say, _Enlighten me._

“Whenever we go out to eat,” Gene says, real serious except for the look on his face, “I’ll get something that’s a little spicier each time, and you can have some.”

“You gonna ring a bell before each bite, too?” Babe asks, and Gene smiles, shrugs.

“If you want,” he says.

Babe laughs and tells him, “I hate you.” Gene ignores it.

“Little by little,” Gene says, placing his hand on the delicate bones of Babe’s ankle, “we’ll get you ready for my mama’s gumbo.”

Babe keeps looking at Gene, smiling as he shakes his head. It’s not a _No, I don’t want to meet your ma or eat her gumbo_ kind of a head shake, but one that just means _You are ridiculous._ Gene understands. Babe’s sure of it.

He has no idea if that’s how anyone actually becomes accustomed to spicy food, or if Gene’s just teasing him, but Babe basically has the same plan for living the rest of his life without Julian. Just get up each day and, little by little, put himself back together. Little by little, let go of the crash and just focus on everything else, like the way Julian couldn’t wink, or how he always snorted when he laughed hard enough. How he never lost his accent and how he’d swear up and down that it was normal in Alabama to say things like _by small and small,_ and _catawampus._ _As useful as tits on a bull._

To this day, Babe’s not sure if Julian was messing with him or not, but doesn’t really matter anymore, if it ever did to begin with. Babe’s going to remember all those things that he loved about Julian, and all those things that he hated, too, all the times they fought. And he’s going to remember Julian, sitting in the driver’s seat next to him, complaining about how his heater was broken, and he’s going to remember the way Julian threw his arm out to hold Babe back when the other car came, as if Babe wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, as if Julian’s scrawny arm would’ve done anything at all.

But maybe it helped. Who’s Babe to say? All Babe knows for sure is that he’ll keep waking up each morning, remembering Julian and talking about him like he’s just in the next room, and eventually, one day, the little bit of guilt in the deepest, darkest corner of Babe’s heart will finally shake loose, and Babe’ll be able to let it go.

By small and small, Babe’ll get there.

 

The next morning, Babe has a hard time waking up, but it turns out Gene knows exactly what to say and do to get him going. They have sex first thing, the kind of sex that’s long and slow, their faces inches away from each other the entire time. It’s the kind of sex couples have, all of Babe’s noises swallowed by Gene’s mouth, Babe’s hands never leaving Gene’s skin.

“You can go back to sleep,” Gene offers. “Just lock up when you leave.”

“I wish,” Babe says. “SP today. You don't have it?”

“No, just have rounds. Ralph didn’t have anything. Must be the other half of the class with the exam,” Gene says, and Babe shrugs nonchalantly.

“Your loss. I make a very convincing fifty-year-old woman in need of a physical.”

Gene doesn't dignify that with a response, just shakes his head and tosses a clean shirt Babe’s way.

When they finally get dressed and head outside, the air is crisp and still, and the sun is only just starting to melt some of the ice on the front steps. It won't melt everything, all the snow and the slush, but it'll get some of it.

The street’s quiet. It's not even that early, maybe a quarter to eight, but no one’s out, and it makes everything they say and every step they take seem so much louder. Gene walks with his bike on one side and Babe on the other, and it reminds Babe so much of the first time they spent the night together, of walking Gene to the hospital the next morning. It’s almost exactly the same, except for how Babe feels like a different person now. 

“You busy tonight?” Gene asks after a while, and Babe shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “Wanna come over?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Gene agrees. “Let Bill threaten me some more.”

Babe knocks shoulders with him and opens his mouth to say, _I give you permission to threaten him right back_ , only then someone’s shouting at them from across the street.

“Hey, lovebirds,” Bill yells, because of course it's Bill. He holds up one gloved finger, lets a car pass, and then starts jogging across the street.

Babe waits until he’s close enough to call out, “Speak of the devil.”

“And he shall appear,” Bill finishes easily. He looks at Gene and says, “Hey, Gene. Good to see ya again.”

“Yeah, you too,” Gene says, smiling, and Babe looks between the two of them and he just—

He just feels like there’s all this air bubbling up within his chest and he has no choice but to let it go or float away. He’s smiling. It’s his first time feeling like this in so long, without immediately telling himself he doesn’t deserve it. He thinks he might, in the end. Deserve it. That’s his brother and that’s his boyfriend, and this is him, right here in between them, in between everything.

The sun rises enough that Babe finds himself squinting into the sunlight just to see the both of them, and he blinks only as his eyes start to water from the brightness of it all. He wishes Julian were there to see them, and Babe can almost imagine how everything would go, if the car crash had never happened. Julian would scoop snow up off the ground to start forming a snowball with, just for something to do with his hands, and he’d be wearing that terrible knit hat with a pom-pom on top, the one he bought at Goodwill as a joke. He’d be smiling, his nose redder than all of theirs combined, and when Gene and Bill were distracting each other, he’d say to Babe, _This is nice. You look as happy as if you had good sense._

Babe would scrub a hand over his face to hide his flush, his smile, and deflect the attention by saying something like, _Can’t wait until you learn English_. Julian would just laugh, knowing the truth of it all.

Even now, standing there on a corner in Philly and missing Julian more than anything in the world, Babe finds himself smiling.

“The heck is wrong with you?” Bill asks him, looking at Babe like he’s crazy.

“Nothin’,” Babe says to him, but he tosses an arm around Gene’s shoulders and shades his eyes with one hand so that he can get a better look at Bill’s dumb mug. “This is nice. I’m happy, is all.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic comes from the Jack Gilbert poem, [ By Small and Small: Midnight to Four A.M.](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/76871201255/for-eleven-years-i-have-regretted-it-regretted) I'm neither a med student nor a Standardized Patient, and I borrowed the illness card info from the OSU and UW-Madison websites... So maybe just ignore all the inaccuracies? I know nothing.


End file.
